Authority Figure

Luke chapter 20, and it’s one
of those sections that if you don’t pay careful
attention, you miss the context in which it is steeped. Christ’s authority had been challenged
almost from the moment of the announcement of his ministry.
Whose authority are you operating under? By whose authority did
you receive this? It’s not a situation unlike our
own day and age. Ordination is held up in the
highest possible terms and almost to an uncomfortable level. I
think I’ve shared with some of you in times past when I once
I had graduated from seminary and I began to to look to finding
a pulpit in which to preach a shepherd to flock. A flock to shepherd. One of the things that I became
acutely aware is that there are a lot of churches that will place
unbiblical demands on those they seek to be their shepherds. There were churches that demanded
that the man must be married. There were those that demanded
the man must have five years experience, neither of which
Christ had. There were those that demanded
that the man have children, which is surely rooted in God’s providence
in a person’s life. And in no way can Scripture be
stretched to construe that a man without children is unfit for
the ministry. There are many such things, and
one of the things, as I mentioned, was this constant demand that
a man be ordained. something that Christ wasn’t. Ordination in our own day and
age has become very akin to the passage before us. This essentially
man-made structure that has kept countless men out of the pulpit,
men who have a message from God, men who have an ability with
the word, men who have something to say and the church is weaker
for it. All because the man wasn’t formally
ordained according to a man-made tradition. And I don’t repudiate
a recognition. I don’t repudiate study. I don’t
repudiate these things. But to the degree that they’re
man-made and to the degree that we only look at the surface, then our ordination is worthless. And that’s exactly what Christ
highlights in this particular passage. If you would, I want
to take you, we’ll come back and revisit the context, but
I want to take you to Luke chapter 20, beginning in verse one. We’ll look at just eight verses
this morning. On one of the days while he was
teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the
chief priests and the scribes with the elders confronted him
And they spoke, saying to him, tell us by what authority you
are doing these things or who is the one who gave you this
authority? Jesus answered and said to them,
I will also ask you a question and you tell me, was the baptism
of John from heaven or from men? They reasoned among themselves,
saying, if we say from heaven, he will say, then why did you
not believe him? But if we say for men, all the people will
stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.
So they answered that they did not know where it came from.
And Jesus said to them, nor will I tell you by what authority
I do these things. It’s amazing to me, the commentators,
what some of the commentators did. They said that, you know,
Jesus brushed aside this question, that he was almost rude. to these
men who asked him a simple question. And here was a golden opportunity
to to stand on divine authority and to say that it was God that
gave me this authority and that Jesus missed a golden opportunity.
Such is always the case with liberal commentators who always
want to play future generation Pharisees and find fault with
Christ. It’s a beautiful passage, and
there are nearly identical accounts in each of the synoptic gospels. Essentially, the scenario is
this. On Sunday, as you know, the evening after the triumphal
entry, Jesus entered the temple. We saw that in Mark 11, 11. It
was as if he stepped in, assessed the situation, looked around,
saw what was going on and exited. There was no scene, there was
no confrontation. He entered the temple again on
Monday, and this is when he cleansed it. This is when he followed
up on what he had seen the evening before. And now, most likely
on Tuesday morning, Jesus enters the temple once more and is doing
what the temple was designed to be. He is teaching. He is leading them to God. He
is teaching them through the scriptures. praying with them,
instructing them in the things of God, the very purpose of the
temple. And this, as with all the rest
of Christ’s activities, displeased the leadership. Essentially,
their address of him in this passage that we come to this
morning is a confrontation in response to the temple cleansing,
but they really didn’t like any of it, did they? As we’ve seen.
They didn’t like the triumphal entry. They didn’t like that
people were giving these accolades to Christ as if he was the Messiah. Something they certainly denied,
they didn’t like the fact that he waltzed in and purged the
temple of all these crooks and criminals. They didn’t like the
fact that they were held guilty for allowing it. They didn’t
like that he was standing there now teaching with A rather undefined
authority. And it’s this that they come
to confront. In fact, if you remember the context of Mark’s
gospel, Mark records it this way, the chief priests and the
scribes heard this and they began seeking how to destroy them.
As soon as they heard of the temple cleansing, they had one
goal. This guy was trouble and they were going to do away with
him no matter what. They began seeking how to destroy
him, for they were afraid of him, for the whole crowd was
astonished by his teaching. And if anything bugged them,
this did.” That when Christ taught, the word, remember, meant that
they were hanging on every word. The people were on the edge of
their seats. They were grasping for the meaning of Christ’s words.
I want to take you this morning
to four episodes in the examination of Christ’s authority. They want
to know who gave him this authority. Where did it come from? What
is the nature of this authority? And we’ll see that in a moment.
First of all, we see Christ’s authority confronted. Christ’s
authority confronted. Look at verse one. On one of
the days, while he was teaching the people in the temple, And
as I’ve said before, I think I said it several weeks ago,
if there was ever a sermon, I mean, I love John MacArthur and I love
John Piper, but if there was ever a sermon, if there was ever
a teaching that I long, I would give every sermon. To sit at
the feet of Christ and to hear what he said that morning, that
would be it. No greater thing had ever been done in the temple.
to have God Himself incarnate in the temple, teaching and preaching
the gospel. I mean, what a beautiful scene. Here is Christ just days away
now from the cross, pleading with people and telling them
about the righteousness by faith and telling them about salvation.
It’s a beautiful scene. And right in the midst of this,
The chief priests and the scribes with the elders confronted him. Now, when you have those three
together, you have trouble. Because this essentially constituted
an official deed by the Sanhedrin, the leaders of the Jews. And what it produces? is a series
of questions that begins now in the Gospels, four in number,
four different questions that are presented by these attackers,
these questioners. that raise different problems
with Christ. First, they attack his authority
and then they attack the paying tribute to the Romans in the
use of their coins. And then they attack the credibility
of the resurrection and then they attack the nature of the
first commandment. And they keep coming at Christ,
looking to find a chink in the armor. They keep attacking Christ,
looking to find some reason whereby they might accuse him. This was
an official inquest. The intent to seek and destroy
him is now in full measure. We’ve seen the priests and we’ve
seen the scribes, but now even the so-called, and I don’t like
this word used in the church, but the laity now get involved.
That’s what the elders functioned as in Israel. The chief priests,
they were the they were the ones that would go into the temple.
They were the ones that performed the liturgical function, the
the actual worship itself before the Holy of Holies. Ultimately, culminating with
the high priest who sat as a ruler over that body. And then there
were the scribes. It was it was the scribes who
were the our modern day equivalent of the theologians, right? The
seminary professors, those that really knew and studied the law
and studied God’s Word. But the elders were kind of the
buffer between the people and these other two entities. The
elders were elected by the people as representatives among this
body. And now the elders have been
swayed by this argument. The elders have been swayed by
Christ’s deeds, or as they saw them, misdeeds. And now the elders
too were in concert with the scribes and the chief priests. And they are on the attack. And this attack, as you’ll see
it, it’s an attack of cowardice. But it’s also an attack of cunning.
It’s sly. You have to admit from an earthly
perspective, it is it’s slick. They didn’t directly oppose Christ,
they didn’t rebuke him, they didn’t try to have him arrested
for doing what he did and driving and cleansing the temple and
driving out the animals. For overturning the money changers,
they didn’t attack him directly on that. They just come to him
and ask him a simple question. Verse 2. Tell us, by what authority
are you doing these things? And can’t you just hear the icky
sweet dripping? Because they didn’t want to appear
to the people as being confrontational to Christ. They had in the past,
but now they’ve got Him where they want Him. They want Him
to hang Himself. They want Him to blaspheme. And so they come to Him You can
almost hear they would ask almost sweetly, tell us by whose authority
are you doing these things or who’s the one that gave you this
authority? These things, again, pointing
clearly back to not only his teaching and his preaching the
gospel, but the cleansing of the temple, all of these things,
whose authority, by whose authority do you get on a young cold to
the donkey? and write in by whose authority
do you receive the hosannas of the people? In essence, they say, where did
you go to seminary? Where’s your ordination certificate? Where’s
the proof of your bestowed authority? And the question was the Sanhedrin
to ask. It was their system. This was
their body, if you will, and it was theirs to protect. And
there were times where they did it well and did it right. But
now it’s Christ that they’re contending with and they can’t
possibly be in the right. Here’s how their system played
out. All teaching, according to the
Sanhedrin, had to be authoritative. And the tradition was this. It
was approved by the authority that it had to be handed down
from teacher to disciple. It had to be. The highest honor
of a scholar was that he was that his student would be like
a well-plastered cistern from which not a drop would leak,
except what was poured into it. In other words, the man wasn’t
a thinker. The young man coming out of the
so-called seminary wasn’t a thinker. He had been indoctrinated and
he would only speak what he was taught and it was passed down
from tradition to those students. The ultimate appeal in cases
of discussion was always to some great authority and you went
right back up the chain and you always quoted your teacher, your
so-called seminary professor, you quoted him. Well, and you
know, and it’s Luke would probably tell you already, it’s the same
way. Still, we get in these arguments and that, you know, that you’d
be wrangling about Scripture and some doctrinal principle.
And the final word is what John MacArthur says. That’s exactly
what’s going on here. And they’re looking for this
string of tradition for Christ. They’re wondering where is. The
order. Not only teaching, but deciding,
making decisions. To go apart from the order of
things was a very dangerous thing. It either meant you had an extreme
amount of authority or was the mark of some kind of ignorant
assumption on your part that usually ended up as being judged
rebellious. And if you were judged to be
rebellious, you were visited with what was called the ban.
You were put out. No more preaching, no more teaching, no more service
of any kind. You were done. This is exactly
what they’re trying to get Christ cornered into. They want Christ
to admit that he has no authority or that so-called claim from
authority from God that would immediately do him in in the
eyes of the people. This is how the service went.
We have our own ordination traditions, but the service went something
like this. The disciples would sit before the Sanhedrin in three
rows. The members of the Sanhedrin
would be recruited successively from the front rank of the scholars.
In other words, they would call out of this group the choicest
men to come into the Sanhedrin. The start of the service, the
rabbi would stand and he would speak for his own pupils and
he would basically extol their virtues. In the end, the imposition
of the hands on the student, something that carries forth
even to our modern day. And they wondered. Where was
your ordination service? Because none of us remember laying
hands on you at all. What are you doing teaching?
That’s essentially the nature of the question. They wanted to bring Christ into
account for his activities the day before and cleansing the
temple, because in their judgment, he had no license to preach.
He had no authority to do these things. He had overstepped his
boundaries. And rather than confronting him
and making themselves look bad, they’ll confront Christ with
this subtle question and let him hang himself. Only a person who was, as one
said, invested with the very highest authority in the religious
sphere would have been able to venture on bringing about even
the slightest measure of reform. What Christ did was drastic,
dramatic. It’s natural for the Jewish authorities
to ask these questions. And so they put Christ on the
spot with this question and essentially. It was human genius. And they really
I think right here, they believe they had him. Because if he claimed
divine authority, he would be convicted of blasphemy. If he
claimed human authority as the son of David, the king, then
he could be handed over the Roman procurator and He would almost
immediately be crucified. And if he disclaimed all authority,
then it would be denounced to the people as a convicted imposter.
I mean, it was a no win situation seemingly for Christ. They had
him from a human standpoint. And you could imagine them reveling
and rubbing their hands, knowing they’ve got him now. Show us
your credentials. They wanted to embarrass Christ. And if he admitted he had no
credentials, the people would be expected to lose all respect
for him immediately. And if he claimed he had divine
authority, as I said, it would bring him into immediate disfavor
with the people. And they would have had an accusation
against him right then and there. There’s another episode. In this
examination of Christ’s authority, not only was it confronted, it
was confirmed or confounded. It gets worse. The second episode of this examination
is that Christ’s authority was confounded, look at verse three,
Jesus answered. And said to them, I will also
ask you a question and you tell me, was the baptism of John from
heaven or from men? And I mean, just like us in our
modern reading of the passage, the two things don’t seem to
be related at all. And I’m sure that the Pharisees
and the scribes and the elders all looked at one another mockingly
at Christ’s reply. What on earth is he saying? Has
he lost his mind? I was tempted to take this tack
with the message. In fact, I even had a title for
it, unapologetic, because we have this tendency to think that
we’ve got to have an answer, the answer for every argument.
We’ve got to apologize people into heaven. And here’s Christ
basically confronted with a question that he ignores, that he seems
to he seems to do completely the opposite with. But the more
I studied the passage, you know what? He does answer their question.
He answers it perfectly. This pattern of challenge and
reply, this interplay between Christ and His detractors had
gone on since His earliest days of ministry. Flip back. I want
to take you on a brief tour. Flip back to Luke 5. In Luke 5, we have essentially
the first major confrontation. Luke 5, verse 21, the scribes
and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this man who speaks
blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God
alone? But Jesus, aware of their reasonings,
answered and said to them, Why are you reasoning in their hearts?
This is a common tool to answer a question with a question. to
challenge the challengers with a challenge of your own. Luke
5, verse 33. Another confrontation. They said
to him, the disciples of John often fast and offer prayers.
The disciples of the Pharisees do the same, but yours eat and
drink. The question is why? Jesus said to him, you cannot
make the attendance of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is
with you. Can you? Luke 6, verse 2. In Luke 6, verse 2, the Pharisees
said, but why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?
Why are you picking grain and eating it? Why are you doing
these things? Jesus answered them and said, Have you not even
read what David did when he was hungry? He and those who were
with him, how he entered the house of God, took the consecrated
bread, which is not lawful for any to eat except the priest
alone, and gave it to his companions. He answered a question with a
question, he put them on the spot, he turned the tables on
them. Look, chapter 11. In the chapter 11, verse 15,
Some of them, that is, the scribes and the Pharisees said he cast
out demons by Baalzebul, the ruler of the demons. Others to
test him were demanding of him a sign from heaven. Question,
prove yourself. But he knew their thoughts and
said to them, any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste
and a house divided against itself falls. And there were many other
such interactions, what Jesus gives them was a question that
if they gave an honest and correct answer to His question, would
have absolutely pointed them to Christ. Christ wanted them
to repent. Christ wanted them to reconcile
with Him. Christ wanted them to fall on
knees of repentance. and embrace Him in faith. And
if they dealt with the question of John the Baptist, it would
have done just that. Unmistakably, John the Baptist
had pointed to Christ as the greater One, whose shoes, sandals,
He wasn’t even worthy to untie, John said. Jesus pointed out
that Christ had the authority. It was by God that Christ had
been commissioned. John the Baptist gave it all.
And Jesus knows their plot, and he gives them this clear, unmistakable
answer. They hadn’t welcomed the divine
mission. They had seen all the powers they had heard him preach.
They had seen the works. And he challenges them to go
back to the ministry, the baptism of John. The baptism of John,
whose was it? Was it from heaven or from men? And when he mentions the baptism,
he’s talking about the whole ministry of John the Baptist,
his whole mission, his ministry, his going in, his coming out,
his preaching about Christ. Was it from God or was it not? And that’s exactly what they
did. They were stunned. They had no answer. John was the most
recent prophet that Israel had ever seen. They hadn’t seen one
for nearly 700 years. And now here stands a prophet
and they failed to embrace even John the Baptist. The people
had. The people had. This wasn’t just
a counter question, this wasn’t on Christ’s part, an evasive
maneuver. This wasn’t an attempt to confuse
them and get out of this sticky situation. He was giving them
the gospel. He was giving them the opportunity
to repent. J.C. Ryle said it this way, the
counter question which he asked was in reality an answer to his
enemies questions. He knew that they dared not deny
John the Baptist, a man sent by God. He knew that this being
granted, he needed only to remind them of John’s testimony to himself. What was that? One of John the
Baptist’s most glorious messages about Christ, John one twenty
nine, he saw Jesus coming to him and said, behold, the lamb
of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is what Christ
was pointing them back to. What about John the Baptist ministry,
was it legit or not? Was it of God or not? The people
all say that it’s of God. And if it’s of God, then John
testified of me. John went on and said, this is
he on behalf of whom I said, after me comes a man who is a
higher rank than I, for he existed before me. I did not recognize
him so that he might be manifested to Israel. I came baptizing in
water. And I have seen the Spirit descending
as a dove out of heaven, and he remained upon him. I did not
recognize him, but he who sent me to baptize in water said to
me, he upon whom you see the spirit descending and remaining
upon him. This is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.
And in case there’s some kind of ambiguity remaining. John
closes with these words, I myself have seen and have testified
that this is the son of God. There was no equivocation on
John’s part. The people knew it. The people
had embraced the ministry of John the Baptist. And all Christ
does is say, was John the Baptist ministry legit or not? Was it legit or not? One Puritan hero. said quite
accurately, it may be reasonably doubted whether the importance
of John the Baptist ministry is generally understood by Christians. In other words, what he says.
With a lot more words than I would. Is we don’t put enough stock
in John the Baptist ministry, and that’s all Christ was doing
here. Saying, look over your shoulders and look at the ministry
of John the Baptist. He goes on and says the brightness
of our Lord’s history overshadows the history of his forerunner.
And the result is that John’s baptism and preaching do not
receive the attention they deserve. Yet it should never be forgotten
that the ministry of John the Baptist was the only New Testament
ministry foretold in the Old Testament. It was a ministry
which produced immense effect on the Jewish mind, aroused the
expectation of Israel from one end of Palestine to the other.
And above all, it was a ministry which made the Jews without excuse
in the rejection of Christ. They had a forerunner. The forerunner
told of the Messiah that was coming, the expected Messiah
that they were looking for. They still denied it. I said there were four episodes
in the examination of Christ’s authority, not only the confrontation
and the confounding of his authority, but look at the confirmation
of his authority in verse five. They reasoned among themselves,
saying, if we say from heaven, he will say, why did you not
believe in him? But if we say for men, all the
people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John
was a prophet. So they answered, they did not know where it came
from. And right here, Christ’s authority is established because
now he has stumped them. They came to stump him. Remember? John’s ministry had made a great
impression on the people. They naturally recognized that
it was a ministry from heaven, that this was a true prophet
of God. Because of John’s recent and untimely death, it only deepened
the people’s longing for him and love for him and appreciation
of him. They were not about to tolerate
the Pharisees running him down and repudiating his character.
So effectively, now they are cornered by Christ’s question.
These leaders that almost pretended some kind of omniscient knowledge
of the things of God now find themselves to be stumped. I mean,
was there ever a greater question? Was there ever a greater question
of when the Messiah was coming and what he would be and where
he would be and what he was like? And now the forerunner comes
and they can’t decide whether he’s legit or not. They essentially gutted their
own authority. They undermined their own authority.
They admitted that they had no answer to this very simple question. Luke records that they feared
stoning of the people, the bottom line is they feared the truth
even more. They couldn’t reconcile that this could be the Christ.
They were bound and determined to do anything before they recognize
it. There’s a fourth episode. Not
only do we see Christ’s authority confronted, confounded, confirmed,
finally concealed. In verse 8, it says, Jesus said
to them, nor will I tell you by what authority I do these
things. Jesus gave them the answer. The clear, unmistakable answer
lay right there before them. Jesus had acted with absolute
authority and He stood toe to toe with these evil men. calling
them to repentance and giving them the clear testimony, just
as He had done from the outset of His ministry. And people,
we have the privilege of holding in our hands the Gospels from
beginning to end that testify of Christ and His authority. And listen to how full it is. What kind of authority does our
Lord Jesus possess? Remember the authority of his
teaching, of his message. Even when he began to minister,
even his enemy said he was teaching them as one having authority
and not as their scribes. They’ve never heard anything
so authoritative before in their life. He had authority over sickness
and disease and death. Mark 127 records, they were all
amazed and they debated among themselves saying, what is this?
A new teaching with authority and he commands even the unclean
spirits and they obey him. As such, he had the authority
to forgive sins, and that was astounding to them as well. Luke
5.24 So that you may know the Son of Man has authority to forgive
sins. He said to the paralytic, take
up your stretcher and go home. He had the authority to heal in order to underscore His ability,
His authority to forgive. He had the authority to execute
judgment. John 5.27, He gave Him authority to execute judgment
because He is the Son of Man. He gave Him authority over all
flesh for the sake of salvation. John 17.2, You gave Him authority
over all flesh. That is, to all you have given
Him, He may give eternal life. gave him authority over his own
life. Christ, when confronted by Pilate, who thought he might
punish Christ, said no one takes it away from me, but I lay it
down in my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down.
I have authority to take it up again. In fact, Christ’s authority was
over all authority. Jesus said all authority has
been given to me in heaven and on earth. What Paul said, far above all
rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that
is named, Christ is there. Christ was there standing toe
to toe with these evil men. And even in the midst of defending
his own authority, he gave them a clear, cogent call to repentance. By calling their minds to consider
the ministry of John the Baptist. Was it of God or was it of men? Let’s pray. A gracious God. We humble ourselves before so
merciful a savior. Lord, you have given a similar
call in each of our lives. You have first and foremost established
your authority, authority over all things. You sent a forerunner. Still, they ignored you. You’ve
given us your word. You’ve shown yourself to be true
and worthy of following. And still there are hearts that
hold out from you. Father, may any heart, any individual
that fails to yield to Christ and to his authority, to his
lordship, may they come to see his absolute authority even this
day. May they come to Christ in faith.
Father, we thank you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen.