By What Authority?
Notes
Transcript
And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him,
and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?”
Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.
Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.”
And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’
But shall we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet.
So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
By What Authority?
By What Authority?
The reluctance to believe, NOT the inability to comprehend, is what hardens hearts.
The reluctance to believe, NOT the inability to comprehend, is what hardens hearts.
Introduction:
What is at stake in this story is the same thing that is at stake in the life of every Christian every day for all time - Who is Jesus? By what authority did he do what He did?
- Brief Explanation of Text
Problem to be addressed
Solution/Restate Thesis
And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him,
This picks up where the cursing of the fig tree leaves off - Jesus and the disciples continue walking into the city of Jerusalem, now the third day in a row He has found Himself in the city, and each day He has found His way to the temple.
And Jesus is walking through the temple, like Solomon’s Porch (or portico), again in the court of the Gentiles.
Luke 20:1 Tells us Jesus was teaching the people, preaching to the people.
One sitting there in that moment may have sensed the uneasiness of those in the temple. Yesterday, in Jesus’ timeline, He had come into the temple and flipped tables, kicked over chairs, kept people from their personal business in the temple.
What is He going to do today?
Well, He walks around teaching and preaching. Which, depending on your opinion of Jesus, may have been understood to be just as dangerous.
It’s at this time, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders seek Him out. These were the same men seeking to destroy Him (Mark 11:18 “And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.”)
The same people He had predicted would seek to destroy Him (Mark 10:33).
This is the temple hierarchy, their leaders, it’s possible (though Scripture does not exclusively say so), it is possible that Caiaphas and Annas - the highest of priests in the nation - were present with this crowd.
Most of these men were likely Pharisees, by the way, as the Sadducees will take their shot later in chapter 12 (Mark 12:18-27).
And they come to Him. They seek Him out. They find Him in the temple - they’d been waiting. They had to have been anticipating Him, looking for a confrontation.
I imagine that these men chose their words carefully, as one generally does in preparation for a debate. “If He says this, make sure we say that.” “If Jesus tries to say this, we’ll react this way, and reply with this other thing.”
If you’ve ever taken part in a public debate, or an apologetics ministry (like we saw last week with Santiago Guerrero), much of your discussion is planned - because you want to win. You want to be shown to be truthful.
If you notice on Sunday night, some of the things Santiago would say is, “If they say this, this is how we should respond to that.”
The leaders of the temple were likely plotting in the same manner with Jesus, ready to throw down. They have their gameplan in place, and they’re good to go. So they go to Jesus.
and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?”
This is not their first rodeo, their first altercation with Jesus. Many of these men had followed him through Capernaum, testing Jesus, questioning Him...
If you recall back in chapter 2, the Pharisees show up and question Jesus about the Sabbath, about fasting, about how His disciples washed (or didn’t wash) their hands.
In Mark 3, they set a trap for Jesus to see if He’d heal on the Sabbath and He had exposed their hypocrisy time and time again.
In the same chapter, they’d accused Him - based on assumptions made about where His authority came from - saying Jesus drove out demons by the power of the devil. In that discussion, Jesus made it very clear where His authority really came from.
Matthew’s account has Jesus spelling it out for them: Matthew 12:27-28 “And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”
But they didn’t want to admit - at least publicly - that Jesus was who He said He was.
Jesus has answered this question, time and time again, but they refused to hear it. They refused to see the evidence. So they come to Him again, thinking they’ll really pin Him this time.
“By what authority” they asked Him - the Greek word is exousia - meaning “Freedom to act” or “by what right” does He act.
So no matter the evidence they’d seen, they refuse to see the truth. No matter what Jesus has said previously, they refused to listen.
He’s explained His authority, He’s demonstrated it, nope, don’t want it.
Jesus has taught with authority, all along...
Mark 1:22 “And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.”
In fact, about 75 different times, Jesus says in the Gospels, “Truly I say to you” which we’ve seen Rabbis don’t talk that way, Jesus does, because He was the ultimate authority, the ultimate truth, from which He was speaking.
In this, He shows His divinity.
He also showed it when He demonstrated He had authority to forgive sins...
Mark 2:10 “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—”
Finally, after His resurrection, He will clearly say to His disciples Matthew 28:18 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
Now, we’d be remiss if we didn’t connect the dots in their question - “the authority to do these things”.
Likely referring to His teaching and preaching, what He was currently doing, but it also could refer to what He had done the day before in the same area.
Which may change their question to being something more akin to, “Who died and made you the God of this temple?”
Who told you it was okay to run those people out yesterday? Who told you it was okay to turn the tables over, and kick over the pigeon sellers chairs?
Notice, they’re not admitting He was wrong for doing it, they just didn’t like that it got done, or the way in which it was done.
So they go looking for a fight...
But… Jesus was ready for them.
Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.
To begin with, I want to ask you all a very serious question - don’t raise your hand or even reply, but I want you to think hard about what I’m about to ask - how often do you take your time and think about this story?
We’ve been doing this series on the Gospel of Mark for some time now, going through every very of the Gospel account, and there have been several of you who have said, “I never really read that passage that way,” or “Pastor, I just never really thought much about that passage...” And that’s amazing.
That’s why we’re doing this.
But honestly, when is the last time you even read this passage - not even specifically in Mark, but the same story as it appears in Matthew and Luke?
Because if you have read it, and given any thought to it at all, I would be willing to say one thought came across your mind, speaking for the Pharisees, in your own words you probably said, “Hey, wait a second… they asked you first!”
Why didn’t these religious leaders do that? “Noooo, you’ll get your turn Jesus, but we asked you our question first, you answer that, and we’ll get to your question...”
That’s what we do, isn’t it? In our culture that’s normal. Whether it’s being a smart-alleck to your mom, a teacher, or maybe even if you mean it in a more romantic way “do you love me as much as I love you?” I don’t know do you love me as much I love you? “nah uh, I asked you first...” I asked you second...
We don’t see anything like that here! The Pharisees don’t clam up, they receive Jesus’ question because counter questions - especially in this day and age, this culture - these were common and acceptable in public discussion, especially debate.
Jesus is known to answer questions with a question, we can just look back a chapter when He does the same thing in Mark 10:2-3 “And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?””
Answer the question with a counter question.
This is kind of a fun thing to practice on people, and you’d be surprised how long and how deep a conversation can go if you just keep asking questions. I did this to my dad one time about 10 years ago - he called me and every response I gave was a question.
“Hey son, how are you?” How am I? How are you doing?
I’m good, I guess, been kind of feeling sick. “OH, is it your stomach?”
about 15 minutes later my dad stops and says, “Hey, how come you’re so inquisitive all of a sudden?”
To which I replied, “How do you know what inquisitive means?”
Five minutes later, “Hey knock it off with the questions!”
But that was normal - at least to begin a discussion, not being obnoxious like I was to my dad all those years ago.
Notice what Jesus says, “I’ll ask you one question… then I’ll answer all of you.”
He puts a limit on Himself, in a sense, but if they can answer His one question, He’ll answer their question - which was actually two questions if you recall: “By what authority are you doing this things?” and “Who gave you this authority to do them?”
Now, they came to Jesus to set a trap with their words, He has evaded their trap, in a sense, but He is not setting one of His own. Look at His question:
Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.”
This is not a trap for the religious leaders to become caught in, but an opportunity for them to finally do the right thing - yet they will treat it like it’s a trap.
This is their own chance to come clean on all they’ve suspected, all they’ve thought, to confess their sinful thoughts towards John and towards Jesus, yet because of their own deceitful nature, they will mistrust Jesus.
But notice the emphasis of Jesus’ words: It’s on the baptism of John.
Why? What did John’s baptism do? What was John’s message?
When they questioned John, who did he say he was?
John 1:22-23 “So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.””
Here’s the kicker though - John testified of the divine nature of Jesus’ purpose. He said,
John 1:26-27 “John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.””
John speaks of Jesus, he will even later call Him out, and I’m sure the same Pharisees were there to witness this”
John 1:29-30 “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’”
You see, Jesus’ question is answering their question - if John was from God, then so was Jesus.
If John was from men, well… the people will turn on them, as we’ll see.
And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’
But shall we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet.
Subpoint 1. (Text/Verse Insertion)
Explain Text
Subpoint A.
Subpoint B.
So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
Explain Text
Subpoint A.
Subpoint B.
Conclusion:
- Call Back to Introduction
Restate Thesis
Solution and Call To Action
Closing Prayer