By What Authority?

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Authority of Jesus in Matthew 21

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 21st chapter. When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to Him as He was teaching and said, By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?

Jesus answered them, I will also ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?

And they discussed it among themselves, saying, Well, if we say from heaven, He will say to us, Why then did you not believe Him? But if we say from man, we are afraid of the crowd. For they all hold that John was a prophet.

So they answered Jesus, We do not know. And He said to them, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. All right, in today's gospel text, we need to be reminded of the fact that we're reading chapter 21 of the gospel of Matthew.

And Jesus has just made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. If Jesus' life were a football season, then this text is the playoffs, and we are only days away from the Super Bowl, the day that Christ definitively defeats the devil on the cross.

So the context of what happened earlier in Matthew 21 is going to be vital for a proper understanding of today's gospel. So remember, it's Holy Week, and here's what it says right before our gospel text.

This is earlier in chapter 21. The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and He sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

And the crowds that went before Him and that followed Him were shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. And when He entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, Who is this?

And the crowd said, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. And Jesus entered the temple, drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and He overturned the tables and the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons, and said to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.

Now that last bit, Jesus making a court of whips, driving out the money changers, we all remember that part of this text. That really stands out. Even somebody who doesn't attend church much might know about the fact that Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple.

But what happens next is vital, and this is the part that everybody forgets or even doesn't pay attention to. So here's what happens. In fact, let me ask you the question. Let me just put it out here.

Why did Jesus clear out the money changers? Well, in part because they made the temple into a house of commerce, right? Turned it into a business. But it's more than that. Jesus needed to make space. Did you know that?

Listen to what happens next. Then the blind and the lame came to Jesus in the temple, and he healed them. So Jesus clears out the money changers and sets up kind of an old-school healing revival, if you would, except for this is a real one, all right?

Jesus isn't out there pretending to work miracles, saying to somebody, you know, you've got one leg longer than another. Maybe if I do, you know, none of that kind of stuff. None of these kind of miracles.

Hey, look, isn't that great? Nothing like that, okay? Instead, people who were genuinely blind, who were genuinely lame, they came to Jesus in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes, listen to this sentence.

It's a crazy sentence. When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that Jesus did, usually wonderful is considered to be a positive thing, right? Oh, what did that person do? Oh, what they did was wonderful.

It was wonderful. The meal that my wife made the other day, it was wonderful. Now, there isn't a meal that my wife makes that isn't wonderful. My body can attest to this fact. But all of that being said, usually the word wonderful is a positive thing, but the text says the chief priests and the scribes, when they saw the wonderful things that Jesus did and the children crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the Son of David, you kind of get the picture of what's going on here, right?

So there's Jesus. A blind man comes to Jesus. Jesus, I'm blind. And Jesus gives him his eyesight back. And the guy says, I can see. I can see. And the kids in the temple, that's right, Jesus had a bunch of kids in the temple too.

He opened it up for the sick, the lame, and children. And when the kids saw Jesus perform a miracle, they said, Hosanna to the Son of David. And it was almost like they were saying, come on, do it again, Jesus, do it again.

And so they bring a lame guy to Jesus. Jesus makes him walk.

I can walk.

And he's walking on his own steam.

The kids are going, Hosanna to the Son of David.

Quite the thing going on here. It's wonderful. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw this, they were indignant. And they said to him, do you hear what these kids are saying?

Is this a bad thing?

Did I miss something here? These things are wonderful. But Jesus said to them, yes. Have you never read out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies, you have prepared praise? Now, just that sentence alone should make you wonder.

There's a whole bunch of people out there in visible Christianity saying, children cannot make a decision for Jesus. They're not at the age of accountability yet. Nobody makes a decision for Jesus, infant or adult.

And yet the text says, and Jesus said, out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you have prepared praise. So let this whole thing sink in for a second. We often remember and we talk about the fact that Jesus drove out the money changers.

And many times we mistakenly think that that was the big offense to the chief priest. But it wasn't. That was only half of it. After driving them out, Jesus then invited, like we've already noted, the blind and the lame.

Think of it this way. He invited those whom the Pharisees claimed were cursed by God and were being punished by God for their sins. And rather than rub their noses in their sin and point to their condition as proof of their inadequacies before God, Jesus healed them for free.

You see, he drove out the money changers. There was no money exchanging hands. You'll notice that Jesus, the text doesn't say that. Jesus then said, reach into your money bag and pull out a thousand denarii seed offering and sow it into my ministry and God will bless you a thousandfold.

Didn't do anything like that. Jesus healed them totally for free. And the result of this was that children who witnessed these things, these miracles, were crying out in worship and praise to Jesus and saying Hosanna to the Son of David.

But the chief priests, rather than fall on their knees and joining with the children in thanks and praise to God for the miracles that they were privileged to witness that day, they responded with indignation, with unbelief.

Now, all of this, by the way, occurred on Palm Sunday. Now the next morning, Monday morning, Christ returned to the temple again and this time he was confronted by the chief priests and this is where today's gospel text picks up the story.

What Authority Means and Why Jesus Has It

So when Jesus entered the temple, this is day two, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching and said, and you can almost see the sour look on their face. By what authority are you doing these things?

Who gave you this authority?

What a stupid question.

What a completely boneheaded question. Who gave you this authority? Now, real quick, before we go too far, let me ask you this question. What is authority? What is it? Well, when a pastor pronounces an absolution, you'll note in our liturgy it says the pastor speaks these words, in the stead and by the command of Christ and by his authority, I forgive you all of your sins.

When he does that, he's exercising an authority that Christ has given to the church. So a good way to think of authority is to think of it as permission. Authority is permission. If I have authority to enter a restricted zone, I have permission from somebody who has the authority to give that to me, the power, right?

Now, think of it this way. I don't know if you guys have noticed, but China seems to be in the news a lot lately, and things aren't going so well with China. Things are kind of coming to a head, you know, and so what if I, you know, Citizen Rosebro said, that's it.

I'm calling it. We are now declaring war on China. I say, you guys don't look at me. Why are you looking at me like that?

All right.

You see, if I did that, everyone would scoff at me just like you guys are because I do not have the authority to declare war on China. Remember this. Through the United States Constitution, the citizens of the United States have given permission to the U .S. Congress to declare war.

So no individual citizen has that authority or the permission to do so. So note then that as you read through the Gospels, Jesus, it is noted, spoke as one who had authority. He had real power, real authority, real permission to do some really important things.

So think of it. Jesus would talk like this. You've heard it said, but I say. You know, Jesus was much different than the scribes and the Pharisees and the way he taught.

All right.

So keep that in mind. So the chief priests, after watching Jesus drive the money changers out of the temple and then open up the temple to the blind and the lame and then watching Jesus miraculously heal them all and then hearing little children praising God in response to Jesus' miracles, they decided to play dumb.

And so the next day they asked Jesus who gave them the authority to do these things. But it's obvious who gave Jesus this authority. Even Sherlock Holmes could have figured it out quite easily. And by the way, it's the first season of the BBC's Sherlock that's the best.

The other seasons, it goes downhill from there. Now, so it's obvious who gave Jesus this authority. This is the same Jesus who just a few days earlier had raised Lazarus from the grave. And this is the same Jesus who miraculously gave sight to the two blind men of Jericho.

This is the same Jesus who cast out demons from countless demoniacs, gave hearing to the deaf, speech to the mute, multiplied five loaves and two fishes in the wilderness, and fed a multitude. And if that wasn't enough, he duplicated that miracle again in another place, across the Sea of Galilee in pagan territory.

And in all the history of Israel, think about this. Go back into your Old Testament. In all the history of Israel, there had never been anyone who even came close to Jesus when it comes to miraculous signs and wonders.

Moses was quite significant. But in sheer quantity, he was nowhere even near Jesus. So you'll note, yet even the least of the miracle workers of the Old Testament, the least of them, it was obvious that they were all sent by God.

So the words of the man born blind from the Gospel of John chapter 9, whom Jesus healed by making mud and putting it on his eyes and sending him to the pool of Siloam, he made it painfully clear how obvious it is who gave Jesus the authority to do what he was doing.

In his rebuke of the Pharisees, who were, listen to the sentence, they were interrogating him for being healed. Let that sink in. This is the nature of unbelief. This fellow was mining his own business, doing what he had always been doing since becoming an adult as a blind man, begging for alms.

Jesus gives him his sight, and he is put on trial like he had committed a capital crime. So he was being interrogated for being healed. The man born blind, in reacting to the Pharisees' claim that they didn't even know where Jesus came from, he said these words, It's pretty obvious, right?

By the way, what happened to the fellow after he said that? He was excommunicated. All right. So the problem that the chief priests were suffering from, it was not a lack of evidence. It was unbelief.

And you cannot reason with unbelief. Don't believe me? Try to do it on social media, see how far you get. Facebook is so fun, right? You see, the small catechism says it this way, I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, nor can I come to him.

But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, and the Holy Spirit has enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified me, and kept me in the true faith. You can't reason with unbelief. So Jesus doesn't even try to reason with them.

Instead, he takes their unbelief and he pushes it into the corner, and then gives them no way out, and gives them no excuse. Our text says Jesus answered them, All right, I'll ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things.

The baptism of John, you know, John the Baptist, from where did it come? From heaven or from man? Did God send John the Baptist, or was this guy just a lunatic who basically sent himself? That's the question.

But the religious authorities, they knew full well that giving an honest answer to this question either way, it would indict them and show the world that they were in the wrong. So we now hear their deliberations.

The text says they discussed this amongst themselves, saying, Well, if we say he's from heaven, he will say to us, Then why did you not believe him? That's quite the admission, by the way. They just admitted they didn't believe John the Baptist was from God.

But we know he was. He was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy, of the one who would prepare the way of the Lord. And think of it this way. John the Baptist and these religious authorities, they didn't get on too well, did they?

You see, when they showed up to investigate what was going on in the Judean wilderness, to see what this John the Baptist fellow was all about, they show up wearing their uniforms, and John the Baptist spits a grasshopper leg at them and says, Who warned you to flee from the fires of hell?

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And don't you dare say to me, We are sons of Abraham. God can raise up sons of Abraham from these rocks. These rocks are smarter than you are. So repent. They didn't get on too well.

But here's the thing. Was John wrong about them?

No.

These same fellows who didn't believe that John the Baptist was sent from God, do they think Jesus is sent from God?

No.

You can't reason with unbelief, man. These guys are full-blown unbelievers, and they're in charge of the church. Think about it. So, they admitted they didn't believe that he was from God. So the deliberations continued.

They say, well, if we say he's from man, we're afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet. So if they said he was from heaven, they'd have to admit John was right in calling them to repent of their false religion and confess that their works-based religion that they had concocted and were holding on to, that it was false.

This would have undermined the entire credibility and the perceived authority of their leadership. Besides, we all know this. Baptism is for newbies. It's for converts. It's for the initiates, not the religious experts that they pretended to be.

Yet, it's kind of fascinating if you think about that fact. Jesus submitted to John the Baptist's baptism, didn't he? And John protested. And Jesus said, let it be so now, in order to fulfill all righteousness.

Jesus knew that John the Baptist was from God. But if they said that he wasn't from God, he wasn't from heaven, they knew that merely saying those words, that they risked their lives and would have been viewed as blasphemers because the everyday Israelite believed John the Baptist to have been a prophet.

And the everyday Israelite was right. But notice that their deliberations, again, show that they did not believe John was from God. So if this were a game of chess, Jesus' question checkmated the chief priests.

They just lost the game. But here's the thing. Unbelief doesn't care. Unbelief doesn't ever acknowledge that it's possible for it to be checkmated. Unbelief is incredibly resistant to truth. Unbelief is resilient to the calls to repent.

So they answered Jesus, we don't know.

We don't know.

So Jesus said to them, well, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Then Jesus goes on to say these words, truly I say to you, let this one sink in for a second, truly I say to you, and he's talking to the chief priests here, that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God before you are.

Ooh, those words had to sting. You see, the tax collectors were the people who were working for the Roman Empire, the nation that was occupying Israel and putting them under their boot. And, well, I don't need to tell you that prostitutes aren't exactly known for their moral standing, right?

So Jesus said to them, the tax collectors and the hookers, they're going into the kingdom before you are for John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him. But the tax collectors and the hookers believed him and when you saw it, you did not afterwards repent and believe in him.

He just affirmed that John the Baptist was from God and then noted that sinners of all stripes, the most notorious of sinners of all stripes, are pardoned and forgiven. Upon hearing the preaching of John the Baptist, they repented and believed and they were pardoned by God.

Unbelief, Repentance, and the Authority of the Word of God

Now, before you think this gospel text is merely about them and that you're nothing like that, remember that your old Adam, my old Adam, is just as irrational and unbelieving as the chief priests. We concoct the same kind of damnable schemes and questions in order to undermine and deny Jesus' authority and the authority of the Word of God.

We bristle at the fact that the Scripture says that our favorite obsession or pursuit or pet sin is, in fact, sin. So what do we do? We attack the Word of God and we say stupid things like, well, the Bible was made by fallible men.

Therefore, I don't need to believe that the Bible has the authority to call me to repent. Or they'll say, homosexuality can't really be a sin. That's such a stupid thing because the Bible forbids people from eating shellfish.

I saw you eating lobster last night. This is how they talk, right? Or we play games and we say things like, listen, baptism, I know the Bible says it washes away sins, but baptism can't wash away sins.

And believing otherwise, that's silly. It's ridiculous in our modern age. Or we say that it's superstitious to believe that the Lord's Supper, that there's the body and blood of Christ. That's silly, even though Jesus said those words.

You see, these are perfect examples of sinful unbelief acting as if it knows better than Jesus, knows better than the Word of God. Over and again, this unbelief is nothing short of idolatry and is usually preceded with these foolish words.

Well, the Jesus I believe in would never blank. The Jesus I believe in would never send anybody to hell. Well, when you start talking like that, it's clear that that Jesus is not the real Jesus. And that Jesus not only has zero authority, that Jesus has zero existence and that Jesus cannot save you.

So it's time for us to over and again repent of all of our trick questions that are designed to undermine, challenge Jesus' authority and His Word and put away all those clever tactics and games of unbelief and return to the simple faith that is found and revealed in Scripture and is laid out for us, even so succinctly in the catechism.

This simple faith will not make you appear to be the smartest person in the room. Far from it.

You're going to note,.

I do not have any honorary doctorates from any places, any religious institutions. There's kind of a reason for that. You see, this kind of simple faith doesn't make you look smart to the world. It makes you look foolish.

Alright?

So, I assure you though, instead, that this simple faith will assure you that all of your sins are bled for and that you've been united with Christ in the waters of baptism and that you have been forgiven and justified and given eternal life as a gift by grace through faith.

And more importantly, you'll know that Christ has the authority to lay down His life for your sins. And He also had the authority to pick it up again and rise from the grave. And that no one, no human being or demon, has the authority to snatch you out of Christ's hands.

That's the important bit. You are bled for, died for, and forgiven. Even forgiven of all your silly little games of unbelief. So, Ezekiel asks the question, Why will you die, O house of Israel? Says Yahweh.

For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares Yahweh Elohim. So turn and live. Trust the Lord of your baptism and you will live. He is authorized by the Father to save you. And He has done it.

So stop trusting in yourself and your clever intellectual games. Trust Jesus. In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

We thank you for your support. All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message. And again, thank you for listening.