The King’s Authority

Introduction

We have this impulse that when things aren’t going right, maybe an injustice has been done against us, and if we feel helpless to change the situation, we look for an authority figure who can help us. Maybe as a child “tattling” on a sibling, hoping that justice will be served! Or we say, we need to go to the authorities! When I was a teenager our house was broken into, a lot of stuff was stolen, we called the authorities, the police, and they admitted there was little they could do to help. What did we feel? Disappointment. I’ve been wronged, and you’re supposed to have the authority to fix it! We want an authority figure with a magic wand to come in and make things right. Or think of a health issue, an illness or disease, we go to experts, authorities in the field of medicine, to help us and they can’t fix everything. I’m not saying these authorities aren’t doing their jobs right, but rather that we put undue expectations on what we perceive as authorities in our world. We want the safety and security that comes with having grown ups in the room to help when we need it. But it’s not always there and these “authorities” cannot save us.

But what we see in this passage today is Jesus, who we’ve already said has come as a king, but not just any king, this king has supreme authority. His authority is far-reaching, His authority is something that we can depend on it, it makes Him dependable as our savior and as King. In these early passages of the book of Mark we’ve talked about how Jesus announced that His Kingdom had come and as we learn more about this King we see that we are in good hands under his authority. This passage is three mini-episodes that illustrate our main idea today: Jesus is the king with authority over all things, therefore we can trust and depend on Him. We’ll look at the authority with which Jesus taught, then we’ll see his authority over the Spiritual when he casts out demons, and his authority over the physical world when he heals many from sickness.

Authority in His Teaching

The passage starts with Jesus doing some of his earliest public teaching in the book of Mark. Mark doesn’t record the content of this teaching, we don’t know what Jesus said, what he taught about, or what scripture he referenced. The emphasis in Mark’s record is on how Jesus taught: as one with authority! This was so evident that the people who were gathered in the synagogue were astonished. They were astonished specifically by the authority with which he taught.

What does this mean? Did he project his voice out really well? Did he just yell loudly and bang his fists on the lectern? It’s not that Jesus sounded authoritarian but that he was a fundamentally different kind of teacher than they had encountered before.

You see, the synagogue was the gathering place for ancient Israelites to hear teaching of their scriptures: the Hebrew Bible, what we know as the Old Testament. Jesus is contrasted here with the scribes, it says he taught with authority “not as the scribes.” The scribes were the keepers of the scripture and they were not unintelligent or ignorant of the intricacies of the Hebrew bible. In fact, it’s hard to overstate the the level of expertise and knowledge the scribes had regarding the scripture. They were highly regarded in these communities, but their authority did not come from within themselves, it came from the tradition of elders. The scribes’ interpretation of scripture would often be dependent on great teaching that had come before them, they would quote great rabbis of the past and their interpretation of scripture. They relied on the precedent and tradition to back up their interpretation and their authority.

And honestly, we do this too! I know a good Tim Keller quote can really help make my point in a Sunday sermon. If I really want to make my point, maybe I reach back to John Calvin or Martin Luther. Or I’ll use a Greek word. We go to the experts!

But Jesus doesn’t need to do this. He has a different kind of authority, an authority inherent to Himself not because of a tradition that came before. The Greek word here for authority is ἐξουσία, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament it often refers to the “unrestricted sovereignty of God.” About Jesus it is used to describe his comprehensive position of power above all things. Jesus understood this about himself, in Matthew 28 after his resurrection Jesus gives the great commission that believers would go and baptize people of all nations. But the great commission begins this way: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…” (Matthew 28:18). He understood that His charge to His followers comes from the authority given to him.

This word authority can also refer to the right that someone has to rule and Jesus, because of who He is, certainly has that right. First of all, God reveals Himself to us through Jesus. He is the living Word who is God and was with God since the beginning. D.A. Carson calls Jesus “God’s ultimate self-disclosure.” He is the image of the invisible God it says in Colossians 1.

Jesus also recognizes that He is the fulfillment of scripture. It is to Him that all of scripture points, from Genesis is Malachi in the Old Testament, from Matthew to Revelation in the New. All of it is unified in how it points us to Jesus Christ. If you remember Easter Sunday this year, Dave preached on the story after Christ’s resurrection in Luke 24 when Jesus walked on the Road to Emmaus with two disciples and that he “interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.”

You wonder why Jesus could teach scripture with authority? It’s all about Him! So yes, he’s an expert authority. Scripture comes from Him so yes, he can speak authoritatively about it!

And what’s the invitation for us? We take seriously what Jesus says, we recognize that He is an authority that we can submit to, not because he’s loud or authoritative, but because of who He is. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him, and he calls us to follow him. And we’re also invited to trust scripture and to see how it points us to Him. Scripture, as we submit to its authority, points us to Jesus and deepens our relationship with our King.

Authority over the spiritual

After his teaching and everyone is astonished by his authority, Jesus encounters a man with an unclean spirit—that’s a phrase Mark uses to describe demons. The demonic spirit recognizes Jesus, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?…I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” Jesus then demonstrates His authority even over the demons and commands that the spirit be silent and come out of the man. And this is witnessed by the crowd who are amazed. Now they say, “What is this? A new teaching with authority [there’s that word again]! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”

The people witness that his authority extends over the spiritual forces, the demons, the unclean spirits. And this is important because people of the day recognized that the spiritual world, especially unclean spirits or demons had some measure of authority in this world. Jesus will refer to Satan as the prince of this world, Paul refers to the spiritual forces as “authorities.” Famously in Ephesians 6:12 “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

The unclean spirits, it is clear, have some authority—certainly the demon that was oppressing this man in the synagogue had authority over him. But Jesus had the greater authority. Mark sets this up as the first clash between the spiritual powers and authorities, the authorities of this world, against the power and authority of the Kingdom of God. A conflict between the Kingdom of Christ and the dominion of Satan. On an individual level it is a conflict between one anointed by God and one held captive by an unclean spirit.

Jesus’ authority over demons, His redemption of this man and those who will come later in this passage, these are signs of the Kingdom of God breaking into the the powers of this world. And that is one of the astonishing things about the authority of Christ, He uses his authority not for a display of his greatness, but for the redemption of captive people.

It’s also worth noting that the demon knows exactly who he is: the Holy One of God. And Jesus is quick to rebuke him, his authority can silence the voice of the demon and cause it leave the man. He doesn’t rebuke the demon because the demon is wrong, but Jesus is very intentional about how He reveals Himself throughout the gospels and he will not have an unclean spirit spoil the plan of God. Jesus, rather than reveling in his identity, uses it to silence the evil one.

We are reminded in this account of the reality that Paul describes, there are spiritual forces of darkness in this world that are warring against the Kingdom of God. Today, rather than getting into a whole theology of the spiritual forces (though the book of Mark includes a number of encounters like this, so we will have more opportunities to consider these things), I want to focus on this main theme of authority. You see, though indeed we fight not against flesh and blood, we also know who it is that has the ultimate authority over the forces of this world. That is our King Jesus.

And one day we know that Jesus will cast away all the evil forces for good. Revelation 12:10 references the authority of Christ in this way: “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down…’”

We need not fear; that is not to minimize the threat, but reinforce that Jesus is bigger and greater and mightier than any evil we face. Look at the way Jesus teaches us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer: lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil. We can pray those things precisely because our God has the authority and the power to deliver on those things. Pray those things in confidence.

And Jesus’ authority is not limited to the spiritual realm, he is, of course, fully God and fully man and hi s Kingdom extends over the spiritual and the physical.

Authority over the Physical

Jesus’ fame is growing throughout the region because of the scene at the synagogue, but he goes immediately to the house of Simon (who would be called Peter) and Andrew with James and John. There Jesus finds Simon’s mother-in-law ill with a fever, they tell him about her and he heals her. Simply by taking her hand, Jesus heals her, the disease leaves her body.

Jesus’ authority extends to all of creation, he commands disease and illness. He commands the storms to cease, food is multiplied, and people are healed, he is the King over all things. This is authority inherent to Him. Notice how he heals her: he does not cast a spell, he does not say any magic words as would have been typical with an ancient near-Eastern “wonder-working” healer. He took her hand, without a word, helped her up, and she was healed. The healing depends solely on Jesus and the authority of the Kingdom that he brings into this home.

It is with this authority, all authority in heaven and on earth, that Jesus chooses to compassionately restore this ailing woman. Again, as with the man with the unclean spirit and as with his teaching in the synagogue, the emphasis is on the authority of Jesus to compassionately bring about this healing.

When he cast out the demon he was demonstrating a victory of His kingdom over the forces of evil; in a similar way, this healing and those that will follow are a demonstration of the Kingdom continuing to break forth into this world. Isaiah 35:5–6 “[He will come and save you.] Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;” The healing miracles are an expression of his role and authority as messiah, the Kingdom is breaking in!

And what is the woman’s response to this healing? It says that she began to serve them, Jesus and his disciples. Now, It would be wrong, I think, to see this as her immediately jumping into some domestic duties, hosting those who have gathered in her home. Rather it is her response to the grace and compassion of Christ that she would move to serve Him and serve others. We love because he first loved us, scripture says.

This is the proper response to the gospel, this is the response we ought to have when we receive the Kingdom of God, when we come under the authority of Jesus. Authority, which he uses for our benefit, by the way.

Jesus’ authority is over everything we face in this world, physical or spiritual. Sickness and disease, spiritual attack and oppression; insecurity, any anxiety we have the authority of Christ extends beyond it. And see how this passage ends; many who were sick and had demons come to him and he heals them. He uses the power and authority he has for the sake of many. We can take comfort knowing that this is power and authority he still has. He still invites us to come to him with our troubles and our burdens. He is trustworthy and dependable. He is an authority we can go to who actually has a solution.

When you have faced a challenging situation—maybe a situation at work, a medical issue, a financial issue, a difficult situation as a parent—where’s the first place you go? What’s your instinct? Do you try to find a solution yourself? Do you look for others, experts or authorities that can swoop in and fix things? Or do you go, first, to the One who is King of all things? We want to get to this place, like the disciples telling Jesus about the sick woman, where we go to him first. When we go to Jesus first, in prayer or His word, we’re expressing a conviction that He really is the authority over all things.

It’s not always the first place I go (sometimes it is!), but what I will say is that I get there—resting in the Lordship of Jesus—a lot more quickly than I used to. And that’s God graciously growing this in me. Total trust like that often won’t happen overnight for us, we’re fighting against deeply rooted habits and instincts.

And there are times when we when do not get the relief we’re after, we’re not relieved of the anxiety or healed of the sickness. These things are under his authority as well and, as hard as it is for us to understand, it is in his authority that we wait for healing and full relief when the Kingdom is fully present and He comes again.

I want to close with this; we’ve seen what Jesus does with his authority. We’ve seen that we can trust Him, that we can trust His word, that we can depend on him for redemption and relief. He does all this with his authority. But you know what else he does with this authority?

He lays down his own life for us. In John 18 Jesus calls himself the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep, and then he says this: 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.

It’s the same word, it’s the same right and power. The supernatural sovereignty that he employs when he teaches, casts out demons, and heals the sick is the same sovereign authority he uses in laying down his life on the cross for us. This is our King and this is what He does with His authority. What other king would do this? There is no one else with whom we ought to trust our lives. He gave his up that we might have life with Him. Amen.