By What Authority (Matthew 21 23-31)

Introduction.

Critics of Christianity have hurled all kinds of objections concerning Jesus Christ. If you are a Christian and are in any way involved in talking to people about the Lord, you will quickly discover that. But let’s suppose we lived during the time that Christ himself preached what could they possibly have objected too. I mean just think about all the good things that he did. For starters he taught people about love and grace and righteousness and mercy. He told people to be peacemakers and he sent his followers out into the world to do the same thing.

Jesus Christ did not come with an army to conquer the world he deployed his followers into the world teaching people to love one another. Who could possibly object to that? Who would criticize that? Well, they managed to do it and one of the surprising things is that the critics of Christ in the 1st century were mainly the religious people. They objected very strongly and strenuously to his authority to do such things. As a matter of fact, no sooner did he arrive in Jerusalem and announced what he was doing than very quickly all the religious leaders gathered together and began to object, they wanted to know by what authority he could heal people or even by what authority he said the things he said. So, what was his authority? Well, Jesus answers that charge and he does so in a very intriguing way. 

Today I want us to look at his answer to that question and in the process, I believe we will learn some things about critics of Jesus and about Christ himself. So, let’s ask by what authority did Jesus do the things he did?

Jesus’ Authority Questioned

Now when He came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted Him as He was teaching, and said, “By what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?” But Jesus answered and said to them, “I also will ask you one thing, which if you tell Me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things: The baptism of John—where was it from? From heaven or from men?” They reasoned among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the crowd, for they all count John as a prophet.” So, they answered and said, “We do not know.” And He said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.  “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went. Then he came to the second and said the same to him and he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said to Him, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots will enter the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and even when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him.

(Matthew 21: 23-32)

In this portion of the Gospel of Matthew we are in the last week of the life of Christ. More specifically we are on Tuesday of that last week and during this week Jesus Christ will have a number of confrontations with his critics.  Beginning with this passage and moving into the next we have his confrontation with the chief priests the elders, and then the Pharisees. We’re about to enter a phase in the Gospel of Matthew and in the life of Christ where there’s one confrontation and conflict after another. Yet still these to me are some of the most interesting passages of scripture in all of the Gospel of Matthew. It interesting to note that Jesus was not given a hard time by beggars or prostitutes, the tax collectors, or the publicans or the sinners. His difficulty was with the religious crowd, and that’s exactly what is happening here.

In the opening verse he says that when he came into the temple the chief priest and the elders of the people confronted him about his teaching. Let’s pause for just a second and ask who are these people? It’s obvious enough that this is the chief priest, and the elders, but what may not be obvious is that these very people made-up a large part of the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was the ruling religious body in Israel which was made-up of three groups of people.

This verse talks about the chief priests, that’s one group, the elders, that’s the second group, but what’s not mentioned is the scribes that’s the third group that made up the ruling religious authority of that time. So, apparently these chief priests and elders of the people are coming as a delegation to talk to Jesus about what he is teaching. This was a high-level delegation, let me just mention because it’s going to become significant a little later that there’s a second thing about these people that is significant that is not so obvious. Namely that these are religious people who were convinced they were doing the will of God. These were the ones who felt it was their legal responsibility to do what they’re doing in this verse. They come to Jesus, while he was teaching, and they ask by what authority are you doing these things. Who gave you the authority not only to teach but to try healing people. They believed it was their right to ask such a question and it was also the responsibility of the Sanhedrin to check out any ‘so called’ prophet to see if he was a false prophet. They really think they’re doing the will of God and they have the right to ask this question. However, if you’ve been following along so far in this Gospel account of Matthew you will know they had already made-up their mind to kill him. So, they’re now just looking for is an opportunity to try and get him to say something that they could charge him with. They just want to see if they can catch him out and get rid of him.

I am always interested in how Jesus dealt with questions, I’m intrigued about how he did it, and this one’s a real shocker. Look at the next verse.  “Jesus answered and said to them, I also will ask you one thing which if I tell you I then l tell you by what authority I do these things.  The he asks. The baptism of John where is it from heaven or from man”. They ask him a very straightforward question, “Where did you get your authority from”. Why didn’t he just say, from God. The very first time I read this, I thought to myself, it sounds like he’s dodging the question. But what he is doing is he is answering their question with a question which was an approved Rabbinic method of debate at that time. Jesus says let me ask you a question, you want to know about my authority. Well, you that if you’ll tell me what authority did John the Baptist baptised people.

We are told very clearly in John chapter one verse six which says, “There was a man from God whose name was John”. There is no doubt that John the Baptist was the forerunner of the Messiah and that he was from God, so the appropriate answer is his authority came from God and also he was the forerunner of the Messiah and what would that lead you to say, if John was from God and if he declared that Jesus was the Messiah then Jesus is the Messiah, right!  That’s why he answers a question with a question he’s trying to lead them to the logical conclusion that he must be the Messiah. Obviously, that was not the answer they wanted to hear because it didn’t solve the problem for them. In fact, it created a huge problem for them. In the next verse it says they reasoned/debated among themselves saying, if we say John the Baptist was sent by God, he will say to us, then why didn’t you believe him. And if we say he is just an ordinary man that’s a problem also because everybody in Jerusalem believes that John the Baptist was a prophet of God. They are stuck in the horns of a dilemma, If we say John the Baptist was not sent from God then the crowd is going to get really upset at us. They’re stuck in a dilemma but here’s what they did. They answered and said we don’t know. We don’t know whether he was from God or man and Jesus then says to them, then neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. This delegation looked at the dilemma and they conclude, and the conclusion is, we don’t know. They said if we say one thing, this will happen, if we say this other thing, something else will happen, and they did like either of the repercussions of the decision they would make. But there is something flawed about the whole process here. They did not say, we don’t know, so we will back off and look at this objectively. Rather they said, we can’t say he’s from man because the multitude will get after us so they said we don’t know because they wanted to play it safe. They were only considering the consequences of their decisions not what was true and what was not true. Doing that of course is not always  a bad thing you should consider the consequences of your actions but when you were just looking at consequences and ignoring truth that’s a bad thing, Jesus says, I not going to tell you about what authority I do these things and then he explains himself by means of a parable of the man with two sons who he asks to work in his vineyard.

The point of the story lies in the answer to the question, which son did the will of the father. The one that said he would go to work, and didn’t,  or the one that said no, and then went. Obviously, the answer is the one that went. Remember it’s a father asking sons to go work in the vineyard which is obviously a symbol of the Kingdom of God, the two sons represent two possible responses to the call of God. He’s saying that one son who said I won’t for the will of God and changes their mind and they went did what God told him and like sinners who hear and may initially baulk at what they hear but ultimately respond and repent. In Jesus day those like prostitutes and tax collectors were because of their sexual immorality or the fact that they were  extortioners on behalf of the Roman Empire. They were the hated despised sinners and Jesus says they are like the first son they said no to the will of God, but then changed their mind and they went and did what the father told them to do. 

The other son is like you people that is you think you’re doing the will of God; you say you’re doing the will of God, but the simple reality is you never get around to doing it. John came to you in the way of righteousness, he said, and you did not believe him, but others outcasts are choosing to believe and follow me. Even when you saw what I am doing you have not relented and changed your mind and do the true will of the father. That is important because in John chapter 6 Jesus said, “This is the will of the father that you believe in the one the father has sent”. So, the will of the father disclosed in this passage is that you simply believe. In other words what Jesus is telling them is, I'm from God, I'm the Messiah, and if you believe in me, you will enter the Kingdom of God. 

The key thing is not that sinner’s sins, it is that sinners recognize their sin and then they know they need a saviour. The sinner will get in first before those hard headed hard hearted religious people that think I’m OK, I’m doing the will of God. They don’t make it, why, because they didn’t understand they are sinners. So, in order to get into the Kingdom of God you need to acknowledge that you’re a Sinner. That Jesus died for you arose from the dead and that takes care of all that sin. Now you simply come, and trust Jesus Christ and he gives you the gift of eternal life, that’s the point Jesus is making.

I’d like to now sum all this up and then make some very specific applications. The sum of this whole thing is Jesus is saying that regardless of what you think, or regardless of what you say, if you are not doing the will of God, it is first and foremost because you don’t believe the word of God. That it’s the simple and sole point I want to make today that if you aren’t living in the will of God is it is ultimately because you don’t really believe the word of God. If you are not doing what God told you to do, it all comes down to you not believing the word of God.

I want to close by making statements about all of this.

Number one they came to him and said, by what authority do you do these things. Jesus did not answer that question directly, as matter of fact he said I won’t answer it direct, but instead said to them, what do you think of John the Baptist. e answered the question by saying, what do you think about John the Baptist and what he said about me? John the Baptist thought that Jesus was the Messiah so indirectly Jesus answered their question by getting them to question their wider view of things.  And out of fear of upsetting the general population the procrastinated and backed off.

Second observation, the real point of this is that the religious leaders didn’t do the will of God and it is because at the end of the day didn’t believe the message of God. I submit to you there are religious leaders like that today. The issue is not what comes out of your mouth the issue is what comes out of your heart, and have you really trusted Jesus Christ.

John Wesley is an illustration of an unbeliever who thought that he was doing the will of God as a younger man but he had never really  trusted Jesus Christ. He said he was brought up in a family of a clergyman and he thought that salvation could only be obtained by keeping the commandments of God. He once wrote and I quote, I hope to be saved by not being so bad as other people. His religion involved all the good things, like reading the Bible, going to church and saying his prayers. John Wesley thought that he was going to heaven by not being as bad as other people were. Churches are still full of people like that. But John Wesley was converted on his way back from America where he had been on missionary work in Georgia ironically, and some of the churches he preached are still existing in Georgia. But even when doing this he later said he still didn’t know the Lord. On the went back to England on the boat back to England he talked to some Moravians Christians who told him the true gospel and when he got back in London went to a service at a place called Aldersgate and I’m going to read you what he wrote in his diary he said this.

“Upon my return in the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate street where someone reading Luther’s preface to his commentary on the book of  Romans and at about a ¼ before 9 while he was describing the change which God works at the heart through faith in Christ I felt my heart strangely warm I felt I did trust Christ and Christ alone for salvation and an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death”

That is a quote straight from his journal, these are his very words. Here is a religious man, in the ministry, who thought he was going to go to heaven by, not being as bad as other people, then he discovered that the will of God is that you believe and that you trust Jesus Christ and him alone for salvation. 

I want to do make a final observation. I think that when a person any person, sinner or saint, believer, or unbeliever, does not do the will of God it’s ultimately because they don’t believe the word of God. Or to say that same thing another way,  which I’ve said many times before, the bottom line of the Bible is if you believe what the bible says you should do what the bible says you should do. First and foremost, the Bible says that Gods wants us to believe. I’ve concluded that this is really the bottom line, the issue is do you believe the scripture and what it says about Jesus, it’s that simple.

They religious guys came to him challenging him, saying by what authority do you do these things. So, the issue was authority. So let me ask you a question by what authority do you do what you do? Who determines what you do in life. Doing the will of God has to do with authority and it has to do with whose will wins. Is it God’s will that wins, or your will . If you’re going to do the will of God it begins with believing the word of God. A lot of people just live on an emotional level which means they just do what feels good, they do what’s comfortable or they do what’s convenient. What they are we doing is are living on an emotional level of wanting to feel good. Is that not the way most people live their lives? But is that not saying it’s my will over God’s will?

When it comes to spiritual things, saying I’m the authority in my life amounts to not really believing the word of God. In fact, it is really thinking I’ve got more wisdom than God himself.  Which comes down to saying, I think I’m smarter than God. Some people make a step above that and step out of the emotional level, go one notch up and live on a spiritual level what the Bible says to do and that is to believe and follow Jesus. There’s something higher than living emotionally, there is living by revelation, by living by whatever this book says and what God reveals to you through it. It seems to me that that’s being spiritual, is living life at its highest level. It’s living life at the highest level by simple acknowledging that God is smarter than you. I’ve learned that the hard way through life.

So, by what authority do you live your life, by your own authority, by somebody else’s authority, or by the authority of the Love and the Word and the Spirit of God.