The Authority of Jesus

Mark 11:27-32

27 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, 28 and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” 29 Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.” 31 And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 32 But shall we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet. 33 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.”

Let’s look at how this week is progressing for Jesus and the disciples. Day one, either Sunday or Monday, He rides into town on the colt with the adoration of the crowd. Day two, Jesus curses the fig tree then goes into the temple and flips over all of the tables of the money changers and those using God’s house as a place for monetary gain through price gouging those travelers coming from far away lands to celebrate the passover. The morning of day three they pass by the fig tree that Jesus cursed and Peter finds it withered to its roots. We talked about that being the prophecy of what would happen to the temple for the Jews not producing fruit. After that teaching, Jesus and His disciples are going back into the temple.

Jesus is going to use all the time He has left to teach and preach. He knows he will be killed on Friday so he needs to continue to train up the disciples and preach the gospel because what has he come to do? To seek and save the lost. That reminds me of a quote from Martin Luther when someone asked him if he knew that tomorrow Jesus was returning, what would he do? Luther said that he would plant an apple tree. The thought behind that is that he was going to work until it was over. That is the heart of Jesus. He was going to do the will of the Father until his mission was complete.

What better place to preach this Gospel of the Kingdom of God than to people that need to hear good news. If he is in the court of the Gentiles, within the temple walls, preaching this message it would be for both the gentiles and the Jews to hear, but if it is in the inner courts, where only the Jews could come, it would be even more significant because He is likely preaching the same thing that He preached to the crowds at the very start of His earthly ministry in Mark 1:15.

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

If Jesus is teaching only to the Jews who have never heard this message, they would have been curious maybe confused because in their system, they thought they were the only ones that were part of God’s family because they were in the lineage of Abraham. They had built a system that didn’t rely on grace, faith and mercy for salvation but on their blood line. Why did they need repentance? They were already set. They were the lucky ones that were God’s people. They didn’t understand their ways were dead and that they could never be justified by their works or their pedigree. When the chief priests and the scribes of Jerusalem heard this teaching, part of their job would have been to question a new teaching that came to the temple, but largely they wanted to trap Jesus and get rid of Him. We know that from early on in Mark the religious leaders of the day wanted to silence Jesus.

This is where we find ourselves this morning. Jesus is being challenged in the temple.

27 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, 28 and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?”

The “things” that they are referencing is the turning over of the tables of the money changers and the driving out of the crooks in the temple. They are asking him essentially two questions, who gave you the right to do this and who gave you the might to do these things?

We have to place ourselves in this historical and geographical spot for a moment. These chief priests and scribes were the most learned, they were the most revered because they were the leaders in Jerusalem at the temple. They were not the ones scattered throughout the country at synagogues or outpost regions, they were the elite. If you are following along in our study we see Jesus get questioned by the leaders in the synagogues and then the local pharisees and then some come from Jerusalem, but now he has reached the highest court in the land for the “judges” there to finally ask him questions. They say “who gave you the right and might to do this?”

When we talked about the cleansing of the temple a few weeks ago we talked that there is a supernatural element to the cleansing. The outer courts of the temple, where the gentiles could go, was every bit the size of 10 football fields of tables and money changers and people carrying things through the temple and animals and bird cages and so on. One man did this by himself and it doesn’t say that anyone tried to stop him. That is supernatural strength. The chief priest wanted to know where that strength, or might, came from and who gave him permission to do such a thing.

They saw him as just a man. As one contemporary orthodox Jew said, “Jesus was just a man that wanted to start a revolution and got killed for his troubles.” They made a categorical error of who Jesus was.

Because of the system and traditions that they were raised in, they were unable to see who Jesus was. They grew up in a tradition to expect a Messiah that would be a great military leader like King David and deliver them from the hands of the oppressive Roman government. They were looking for an earthly kingdom to be established.

This is a common problem with believers and non believers alike. The minute that we come in contact with something that doesn’t fit inside our perfect box or our theological system of what God can do we have a tendency to immediately dismiss it because we think that our theological system is the right one. Certainly, there are right answers and proper theology but none of us are right on everything all of the time. In doing this I fear sometimes we question how God can do things or why He does things because we are stuck in our deeply held traditions. Instead we should be searching the scriptures and testing our thoughts and traditions against the Scriptures. Even as I write this I can think that in someones mind the answer is, “I have searched the scriptures and your view is still wrong.” That may be a conversation for another day.

The chief priests couldn’t see that they were questioning the Creator of the universe. They couldn’t see that it was God incarnate. They wanted to destroy this man that was upsetting their way of doing things. They wanted to trap Him. They thought they knew better and never mind that He could do things that they couldn’t dream of like driving out demons and healing leprosy. They are the “experts” in this God thing and no one was going to teach them anything.

This story so reminds me of the book of Job. Job was the most righteous among all of the people of the East. He had many blessings and God allowed Satan to take things away from Job. Job, thinking he had done everything right and essentially believed that it was unjust what God was doing to him, wanted to question God. He cries out to God with his request,

“35  Oh, that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me!) Oh, that I had the indictment written by my adversary! 36 Surely I would carry it on my shoulder; I would bind it on me as a crown; 37 I would give him an account of all my steps; like a prince I would approach him.

Job made a categorical error and it backfired on him. Job thought that God owed Him the blessings and that what was happening to him didn’t fit in Job’s box on what God should allow to happen. God answers Job back much like Jesus answers these religious leaders. God, to Job says, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man! I will question you, and you make it known to me.”

Jesus answers the religious elites in much the same manner. He responds to their trick question with a question.

29 Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.

Like God to Job, Jesus exercises His authority on them. This is God in the flesh and this group of men are questioning Him. They are blinded by their earthly pursuits and earthly wisdom. If they just had open hearts and were able to hear what he was teaching, investigate the miracles Jesus was doing in good faith and test their own scriptures to see if Jesus was who He says He was, then they would have seen, but they, like us at times, were stuck in their own bubbles with their own gods they had constructed in their minds while the real, true God escapes them.

The question that Jesus asks them is a question that would be a thorn in their side.

30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.”

Jesus is getting to the center of their unbelief. John comes on the scene telling Jews that they needed to be baptized. This was appalling to those who thought that the Jews cornered the market on God. Only non-Jews were baptized to be made clean to come into Judaism as proselytes. A seed of Abraham that believed that he was part of the family of God through blood and not by faith would have rejected this message. There was no room in their doctrine to allow for this.

31 And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 32 But shall we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet.

Can you imagine the group of men getting the question from Jesus and saying, “Hold on, Jesus. We are just going to walk over here and have a little chat.” They knew what their answer was. They would never say from heaven because that would have overturned their proverbial tables. If John’s baptism was from heaven they would be out of their seats of power. They felt that they would no longer be in charge. It is likely that they all believed that John’s baptism was from man and this was just some passing erroneous teaching, but they wanted to keep their positions of power and their way of life at all costs. Their way of life and their physical life In Luke’s account of this event in Luke 20:6, “If we say, ‘From man,’ all the people will sone us to death for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” Even if they had a doubt that they could be wrong they did not want to know what was on the other side.

33 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.”

When God responds to Job, he does it with such authority and with questions that Job has no answers to. If you haven’t read Job, I recommend it, but the rebuke of God to a Godly heart will bring about a response that is humbling to the believer but ultimately glorifying to God and that is a heart and spirit of repentance. The pharisee’s because of their hardened hearts didn’t repent when faced with the challenge from Jesus but they doubled down on their ill intent. They came to trap Jesus with the question and instead of being truthful, they wanted to protect their life and dignity and told another lie. They knew their answer, but instead of in good faith inquiring to the one that could have given them the truth, the way and the life, they decided to continue down their own path of sin.

Augustine of Hippo, the early church father said that, “Sin is believing the lie that you are self-created, self-dependent, and self sustained.”

The pharisees had that mindset. They were self sustained and self dependent because their works and their status saved them. It is with this heart that Jesus responds.

And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

God does not turn away from an honest confession and a repentant heart. When Job responds to the rebuke from God, he shows us what the way we are supposed to respond to correction. Job 42:1-6

Job 42:1–6 (ESV)

Then Job answered the Lord and said: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

This is what the Lord desires. Psalm 51:17

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Charles Spurgeon shared a story of St Augustine that is fitting to todays message.

When St. Augustine lay dying, he had this verse always fixed on the curtains, so that as often as he awoke, he might read it: “A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” When you despise yourselves, God honors you. But as long as you honor yourselves, God despises you. A whole heart is a scentless thing. But when it is broken and bruised, it is like that precious spice which was burned as holy incense in the ancient tabernacle.

How can we be puffed up in anything in the sight of the Lord? How can we claim to know anything outside of what He has made plain to us? How can we argue or question anything He is doing in our lives?