By what authority?

“Who gave you the right to do that?” 

It is very human to challenge someone that way, and it goes right back to the Bible. When Jesus had entered Jerusalem in triumph and overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple, the chief priests and elders asked, 

“By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?” (Matthew 21:23 NIV).

People today are just as resentful about Jesus having any claim on them. “By what authority? Why should this Jesus have rights as King over my life?”

Jesus is not embarrassed by the question. It is the questioners who have the problem, not He. They are making three tragic and disastrous refusals:

• a refusal to believe (Matthew 21:23),
• a refusal to hold up a mirror to themselves (verses 24-27) and
• a refusal to obey (verses 28-31). 

The rest of the chapter spells out the grim consequence of these refusals. It is, spiritually, a matter of life and death. 

First, the Jewish leaders demonstrate a refusal to believe. “By what authority?” they ask. The only authority they recognise is the qualifications they approve of themselves. It is a bit like our society today with its stress on paper qualifications.

Jesus saw authority in a different way. His mighty works of healing and compassion were evidence in themselves. They demonstrated God’s love and authenticated God’s power. Every one of them made a statement about Jesus’ authority and bracketed Him with God.

As far as we know, nobody in Jesus’ day ever denied that the miracles had happened. Rather than believe in Him, His critics fished around for an alternative explanation - the same as the deniers of miracles are doing to this very day.

The leaders refused to believe and, secondly, they refused to hold up a mirror to themselves. They wanted to ask awkward questions of Jesus. But how embarrassed they were when He turned and asked awkward questions of them!

The Scottish poet Robbie Burns, seeing a flea on a lady’s bonnet at church, wrote these memorable and relevant lines in the poem “To a Louse”:

“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!”

Finally, verses 28-31, the refusal to obey. I love the parable of the two sons. Dad asks each in turn to go and work in his vineyard. The first one barks rudely, “I don’t want to!” But afterwards he changes his mind and does it. The second one couldn’t be more of a daddy’s boy. “I’m your man!” (Literally, “Me, sir!”) But go he did not. For Jesus, truth shows in character. A truthful character does what it says on the tin.

Think about it, comments Jesus. You can be as awkward a cuss as you like, but if you go away and on reflection do the right thing, you get the credit. On the other hand, you can be ever such a little creep, but if you end up not doing the right thing you don’t get the credit. Good intentions don’t count. Obedience does.

“By what authority?” we challenge the Lord Jesus Christ, we who are merely strangers, pilgrims, tenants on this earth. But as we point the finger at Him, 3 fingers point back at us:

• Why did you not believe the evidence?
• Why did you not take a long, hard look at yourselves?
• Why were you not obedient?

When the crowds heard John the Baptist, they asked, “What should we do?”
Years later, when the jailer at Philippi saw God at work in the apostle Paul and Silas, miraculously freed from their chains (Acts 16), he asked, “What must I do?”
Sadly the Jewish leaders were asking a different question: “How can we avoid losing face?”

The right response to Jesus Christ’s works is “What should I do?” And the Lord loves that question and replies, 

“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

By what authority? By royal authority. Through the inspired pages of Matthew’s gospel, this first-century Man and His first-century miracles come to your 21st-century door. Will you give the right response?