“By What Authority?” Matthew 21:23-32
Introduction
A young second lieutenant at Fort Bragg discovered that he had no change when he was about to buy a soft drink from a vending machine. He flagged down a passing private and asked him, “Do you have change for a dollar?” The private said cheerfully, “I think so, let me take a look.” The lieutenant drew himself up stiffly and said, “Soldier, that’s no way to address an officer. We’ll start all over again. Do you have change for a dollar?” The private came to attention, saluted smartly, and said, “No, sir!”
Transition
Today’s Scripture reading is found in the 21st chapter of Mathew. In this chapter we see Jesus expressing His authority. The whole chapter is built around Jesus declaring His authority as the Messiah sent on the authority of Almighty God.
This morning we will be talking about the authority of Christ as it is laid out in the pages of Holy Scripture. The authority of Christ rests solely on His having been sent from God the Father. Time and again Jesus says that His authority comes from Yahweh, Almighty God, not Himself.
It is from the very words of Jesus Himself that we learn that He was not merely a man, but a man sent from God. In John 5:30 Jesus says, “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” (ESV)
The authority of one who is sent rests not in the one sent but in the one who has sent him. The Protestant Reformers of the 15th and 16th century, from who we gain our theological, biblical, and ecclesiastical heritage; that is simply, they are our spiritual forefathers and Christian forbearers; they held, first and foremost, to a simple 5 point statement of faith, a simple 5 point article of faith.
# 1 Sola Scriptura (“by Scripture alone”), # 2 Sola Fide (“by faith alone”), # 3 Sola Gratia (“by grace alone”), # 4 Solus Christus (“Christ alone”), and # 5 Soli Deo Gloria (“glory to God alone”) these are each emphatic imperative statements – each one entirely true in light of the other, never in conflict, only in complement.
Today we will search out Christ alone as we find Him revealed in the Scriptures alone. Solus Christus, in Christ alone is exemplified the power, majesty, glory, and authority of God alone, Soli Deo Gloria, to God alone be the glory.
Exposition
In the first part of Chapter 21 we see Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey in fulfillment of Scripture in relation to the Messiah. Zechariah 9:9 says, concerning the Messiah, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (ESV)
It is at this point in Jesus ministry, at the beginning of the week of the passion, that we see the people’s expectation of the fulfillment of every Messianic prophecy, on the part of Jesus. Those who had been following Jesus had begun to see Him as the promised Messiah more fully; the only trouble was that they still did not understand that He would ultimately suffer and die in order that He might reign in our hearts, in our lives, and in Heaven.
While the ultimate expression of Christ’s authority will one day be seen on this earth. The people who hailed Him as King, crying Hosanna as He entered the gates of Jerusalem, believed that He had come to cast out the Romans and reestablish the earthly throne of David. The phrase “Hosanna” literally means “O Lord Save” in the Hebrew Tongue.
Upon making His way into the city of Jerusalem, the text says that the whole city was literally “shaken” or as it is translated in verse 10, the whole city was thrown into an “uproar.” It gives interesting insight into the human condition, the sinful state of man, that in only a few days time from so many people hailing Jesus as King, crying Hosanna, as He rode in on a donkey, Jesus would die on the Cross.
How capricious and corrupt are the hearts of men that on Monday Jesus was hailed as King and on Friday He hung on a Cross with the inscription over His head, which read, Jesus King of the Jews. This is interesting because in Roman crucifixions the charge of the crime for which the criminal was being executed was normally placed over the criminal in this way.
On Palm Sunday Jesus was hailed as King and on Good Friday He died for it.
Even the act of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey was symbolic to His authority. Up to this point we read time and again Jesus telling His disciples not to reveal His true nature as the Son of God. Jesus knew that the time was coming when He would reveal His authority completely as the Messiah and knowing that He would be rejected by His own people and crucified by the Romans, He waited until He had fulfilled all things that must be fulfilled.
Interestingly the donkey was a traditional mount for kings and rulers in the ancient Near East. Speaking of Abdon, the ruler of Israel, the Bible says, “He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys. He led Israel for eight years.” (Judges 12:14 NET) We are often led to believe that Jesus entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, riding a donkey, was merely a sign of humility, but it was also the custom of ancient near eastern rulers to ride on a donkey.
It may also be true that in riding into the City in this manner, Jesus also expresses the kind of kingship and authority that He wields, a gentle King who came to serve and die, riding on a donkey, rather than a warring King who will return to judge the nations; as He is depicted in the book of Revelation.
This image of Jesus riding on a donkey was no doubt understood by the people of Jerusalem and was plainly understood by the religious leaders in Jerusalem. In the next section of chapter 21 we see and indignant Jesus cleansing the corrupt money changers from the Temple with a whip made from some chords lying about.
Their sin was not that they exchanged money, you see, at that time Jews came from foreign areas on pilgrimages to make an offering at the Temple but Temple Law required that the offering be made in the form of the Jewish Shekel. The problem was not that they exchanged foreign currency into the Shekel but that as they did, they took a little off of the top for themselves. They were corrupt and had completely missed the point of Temple Worship.
The money changers, just like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, had replaced the genuine and true worship of God for something else. The money changers had seen an opportunity for profit and took advantage of well intentioned godly people. We don’t have to look far to see parallels to this in our day.
The Pharisees had replaced the love of God with legalism. We see this rampant in the segments of the Church today as well. The Sadducees were theologically liberal, well connected politically, and had exchanged true worship of God in favor of their own pursuits for power and influence. Again, we don’t have to look very hard in the modern Church to find parallels for any of these.
Jesus came riding in on a donkey as the King of peace, offering His own life as a ransom for human sin. Jesus came into the city knowing the uproar that His arrival would cause, and no doubt, as the Son of God, Jesus was well aware that the time had arrived for Him to lay down His life for ours. It was in offering repentance, in offering forgiveness that Jesus most fully expressed His authority.
On the evening of April 25, 1958, a young Korean exchange student, a leader in student Christian affairs in the University of Pennsylvania, left his flat and went to the corner to post a letter to his parents in Pusan. Turning from the mailbox he stepped into the path of eleven leather-jacketed teenage boys. Without a word they attacked him, beating him with a blackjack, a lead pipe and with their shoes and fists. Later, when the police found him in the gutter, he was dead. All Philadelphia cried out for vengeance. The district attorney secured legal authority to try the boys as adults so that those found guilty could be given the death penalty. Then a letter arrived from Korea that made everyone stop and think. It was signed by the parents and by twenty other relatives of the murdered boy. It read in part:
“Our family has met together and we have decided to petition that the most generous treatment possible within the laws of your government be given to those who have committed this criminal action.…In order to give evidence of our sincere hope contained in this petition, we have decided to save money to start a fund to be used for the religious, educational, vocational, and social guidance of the boys when they are released.…We have dared to express our hope with a spirit received from the gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ who died for our sins.”
The parents of this Korean exchange student could very well have made a plea that these boys who had murdered their son would be tried with the most sever penalties allowed under the law of the land. Instead they exercised their influence in the same way that Jesus exercised His authority; in offering forgiveness.
In the Garden, on the eve of the crucifixion, Jesus said, “Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back in its place! For all who take hold of the sword will die by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot call on my Father, and that he would send me more than twelve legions of angels right now? How then would the scriptures that say it must happen this way be fulfilled?” (Matthew 26:52-54 NET)
In His first advent, during Jesus earthly ministry, He exercised His authority by laying it down. The Kingdom of God is an upside down Kingdom where the King of all glory gives up His life as a ransom for His subjects. The Kingdom of Heaven is a paradoxical kingdom where the King serves rather than is served.
In today’s Scripture reading we see the chief priests displaying their growing “unhappiness” with the message and means of Christ. He had come into Jerusalem being hailed as the Messiah; He had healed the blind and the lame in the Temple no less, and had threatened their authority by proclaiming His. They were threatened by Jesus because their power was threatened by Jesus.
So, they asked Jesus in verse 23, “By what authority are you doing these things, and by who gave you this authority?” Here, Jesus uses a rhetorical style of argument common to his day. He answers a question with a question. He asks them where John’s baptism had come from; by what authority did John perform his baptism. This trapped these people pleasing priests because they knew that the people believed that John had been a prophet.
The Chief priest and the Temple Elders said that they did not know because they knew that if they said that John’s baptism came from man then the people would become angry but if they said that his baptism came from God then Jesus could ask them why they could not accept that His authority also came from God since John the Baptist had endorsed the ministry of Jesus.
Here we see the pragmatism of Jesus day which is reflected in the pragmatism of our day. There are many people who deny the authority of Christ in their own life for fear of what the people will think. There are many who make rational argument amongst themselves and inside of themselves on an individual level, for fear of what the world around them will think and how they will react.
The ultimate expression of Christ authority in the New Testament is found in the parable of the two sons. In the last section of today’s Scripture reading Jesus tells the Temple authorities a story about a man who had two sons. One day he asks the first son to go work in the vineyard. The first son says that he will and then does not. The second son is told the same thing and says that he will not go but later repents of his disobedience to his father and goes to work in the vineyard.
Jesus goes on to tell these Temple authorities they are like the first son who said he would go, the son who said the right things, but did nothing for his father, while the tax collectors and the prostitutes are like the second son who said he would not go but later realized the error of their way, repented, and went.
In Jesus using the example of tax collectors and prostitutes He used an example that would have, no doubt, offended these highly religious, self-righteous Temple authorities deeply. In comparing them with what were considered with the worst of sinners and then telling them that these sinners were more righteous because of their repentance than them would have flown in their face as an insult of insults.
In Mathew 3:2, John the Baptists says, “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (KJV) the ultimate expression of Christ’s authority is found in his offer toward repentance and salvation. The invitation has been given to all.
Conclusion
In an area of Scotland, there was once a tower called the “Tower of Repentance.” What gave the tower its name we are not told, but it is said that an English baronet, walking near the castle, saw a shepherd boy lying upon the ground, reading attentively. “What are you reading, lad?” “The Bible, sir.”
“The Bible, indeed!” laughed the gentleman; “then you must be wiser than the parson. Can you tell me the way to heaven?” “Yes, sir, I can,” replied the boy, in no way embarrassed by the mocking tone of the other; “you must go by way of yonder tower.” The gentleman saw that the boy had learned right well the lesson of his book, and, being rebuked, he walked away in silence.
We also do well to learn the lesson of this book, the Bible, Christ has expressed His authority by granting forgiveness of sins at the Cross. All that is needed is to place our faith in what He has done for us.
At His first advent Christ expressed His authority in the offer of salvation through faith alone in Christ alone. He gave us the gift of the invitation to repentance. The day is coming when He will again return for His bride, the Church.
In the meantime, may we be like the son who saw the error of his way and went. Let us be like the son who found favor not in his boasting or good works, but in his having accepted the authority of His father and in repentance, sought the better way.
Amen.
