The Authority of Jesus
By Woodrow Kroll
John 7:14-30
One of the main reasons people have trouble with the Word of God is a deep-seated problem with authority. However, it's more than just a by-product of postmodern thinking, anti-establishment trends or the freethinking lifestyles of the past few decades. It's not even a modern problem. It's one that can be traced back to the very beginning of time, when Satan incited rebellion against the authority of God.
Today our study in John's Gospel takes us to a passage that requires us to consider the authority of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Word of God and the Savior we all need. When Jesus walked this earth, He was known by many as a great teacher who spoke with authority that was generally only found in the most highly educated religious leaders. The Rabbis and leaders of His day were stunned, shocked and generally unhappy with it.
Just as it does today, Jesus' authority then tended to polarize those around Him. They were either enthusiastically for Him or passionately opposed to Him. So, why is it important that you and I today consider the authority of Christ?
Now, we're progressing in our understanding of what it means to know Jesus. We've seen Jesus as the Savior; we've seen Him as the Bread of Life. Here in John 7, He does something pretty astounding. Look at this. Look at Jesus' authority in John 7. If you want to know who Jesus is, you have to know the real person, the real guy there. You have to know the real Jesus. Not just a carpenter's son, not just a teacher, not just a Rabbi--you've got to know the real thing.
And here's the real thing, John 7:14, "Now about the middle of the feast" this is the feast in Jerusalem, "Jesus went up to the temple and taught. And the Jews marveled, saying, 'How does this man know letters, having never studied?'" Now, let me stop there.
Jesus makes His way to the temple, He stands in the temple and He begins to teach. Now, you know that not every Tom, Dick or Harry could step into the temple and teach. You had to be qualified to teach in the temple. That usually meant you had to be a Rabbi, you had to be a master teacher yourself. You had to have studied at the local Yeshiva and you had to be prepared to teach others what you learned from the Law.
And Jesus steps into the arena of the temple, begins to teach with great authority, and everybody knows He never went to the Yeshiva. Everybody knows He was the carpenter's son. And that's all they see about Jesus--He was the son of a carpenter. So, they marvel at Jesus' wonderful authority. And they say this to Him, "How is it possible for you to teach the way you do, having never studied the letters?"
Now, you're saying to yourself, What letters? Well, the word that is used there is the word gramma, G-R-A-M-M-A. And for those of you who live in New England, that's not your grandmother! This is the word for "what is written down." And it talks about any teaching that is written down, any written form of teaching.
So, they're saying, "Jesus, you never studied the letters. You never studied the books. You don't have the kind of training necessary to stand here and speak with authority. Where do you get this authority?" Now, I want to center on that for a few minutes because this is not something in the opening years of the 21st century we like very much--we don't like authority. You say, "Wait a minute. That was a thing back in the sixties; we're all over that."
No, friends, we are not all over that. We've just changed the way we fail to respect authority. Let me suggest to you what the Bible has to say about this. You see, the Gospel was always to be presented as authoritative. It was not an option. The Gospel is the only message that gets you to heaven. And we present it authoritatively because the Bible tells us it is the only message.
In Matthew 7:29, "Jesus taught them as one having authority." In Matthew 21:23, the temple priests and the elders got together, they asked Jesus, they said, "By what authority do You do these things? Who gave You this authority?" See, they were always amazed at the authority with which Jesus taught. Matthew 9:6, "the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins."
Now, you say, "Oh, that's fine for Jesus. I can understand how God the Father would invest in God the Son this kind of authority." But what about the authority with which you and I present the Gospel today? Do we have the same kind of authority?
And the answer is "Absolutely, we do!" The authority which Jesus Christ was given by God, Jesus passed on to us as His disciples. It's okay for us to teach with authority because Jesus did and Jesus clearly wants us to teach with the same authority.
Now, today, we don't like authority. So instead of teaching with authority, we present options, you know? Just kind of pick your own thing and I'll give you an opinion and you give me an opinion, and it's no wonder we don't know anything anymore. There's nobody speaking authoritatively.
But the Bible clearly says in Matthew 10:1, when Jesus sent out His twelve, "He gave them authority against all unclean spirits and against all kinds of diseases." His authority was transferred to His disciples. And in Matthew 28:18, Jesus predicated the Great Commission where He tells us to go out and make disciples of all nations, He predicated with this, saying, "All authority [all power] is given to Me in heaven and earth." Therefore, in that authority, you go.
Now, I stand before you today as one who has absolutely nothing to say, and with no authority of my own. And if I ever stand before you and give you my opinion, you have every right to say "Sit down and shut up." If I come to you, however, and I say "This is what God's Word says," I don't do that in my authority. I do it on the authority of God's Word. And that's what the Bible teaches us to do.
1 Corinthians 9:18, Paul speaks about the authority that comes with presenting the Gospel. 2 Corinthians 13:10, Paul says that he has authority from the Lord. Acts 17:22, this Jew, Paul, goes to Mars Hill where everybody sits around on the top of that bald rock. Some of you have been to Athens and you've gone up to the Acropolis there and you looked down over and you saw Mars Hill, the Areopagus.
Well, they used to take everybody there. The philosophers would go there and they would sit around in a circle and they would share ideas. And as long as they sat in a circle and batted back and forth philosophies, everybody's opinion was equally authoritative. But if you remember in Acts 17, when it came time for Paul to speak, Acts 17:22, "Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and spoke to them."
You see, he spoke as one having authority. When he got up, he said, "What I have to say to you is more authoritative than the ideas you have batted around. Because what I say to you is not my idea. What I say to you comes to you from the authority of God." Paul said the same thing to young Timothy. He counsels him to speak these things and exhort and rebuke with all authority.
Now, I have to tell you, lots of you have come to me this week and you've told me what station you hear us on and you've said that the broadcast has been a help in your spiritual growth for many, many years. I appreciate that very much. I sincerely do. And I know it's hard to believe, but there are some people who don't like me! I know you find that difficult to believe, I do get letters occasionally from people who say, "Man are you whacked out! You just, you don't understand."
They try to enlighten me in the more perfect way. And often--I want to tell you this now--often their criticism is that I speak with too much authority. I take that as a compliment, because I don't have anything to say. If I ever do not speak on God's radio this Book, I have no authority at all.
And yet, radio and television and so much today is just one opinion against another opinion. You invite guests and you just kinda chitchat, and you know.... It's not all like that. Not all talk radio, certainly, is like that--certainly not all Christian talk radio. But talk radio is a wonderful thing; people who have nothing to say now have a place to say it. And there're no experts anymore. There's no authority anymore. Everybody has an opinion and every opinion is equally good. That's why these banter programs have become so popular in the last decade--there is no authority.
Now, I want you to contrast what you know about this decade, with these verses in John 7. Jesus speaks with authority. Why? Because that authority was given to Him directly by God Himself. Now, these people are marveling at this authority. And so, the crowd reacts to his teaching. Look at the reaction in verse 20, "The people answered and said, 'You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill You?'"
See, Jesus said that they were out to kill Him. And they said, "Jesus, You're nuts! You must be demon-possessed. Nobody's trying to kill You." Now, that wasn't true, right? I mean, we know from reading God's Word that was not true. They were trying to kill Him. They began to plot early in His ministry to get rid of Jesus. And when He made reference to that, the best way for them to deny it was to say, "You're demon-possessed."
Now, Jesus is not demon-possessed. But they accused Him of being demon-possessed. They ridiculed the plot to kill Him. Look down at verse 25. In verse 25 they wondered why the rulers of the synagogue didn't silence Him. "Now some of them from Jerusalem said, 'Is this not He whom they seek to kill? But look! He speaks boldly, and they say nothing to Him. Do the rulers know indeed'" oh, there's our word (know). "'Do the rulers know indeed that this is truly the Christ? However, we know where this Man is from; but when the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from.'"
Isn't it easy to read the Bible and skip over important words like know? See, what I want us to see is everybody thought they knew and they didn't. And they began to complain, wondering why the rulers don't silence Him. They claimed that His origin was Nazareth; He claimed that His origin was heaven.
I mean, it's as evident as it could possibly be that there was going to be some sort of conflict here. Because Jesus authoritatively spoke about things they could not possibly know and yet they thought they did know. And when you take the knowledge of God and you pin it against the knowledge of the world, eventually you know whose knowledge is going to win out.
Now look at the irony of their insufficient knowledge here. I love this, verse 28. "Then Jesus cried out, as he taught in the temple, saying" watch for our word, "'You both know Me, and you know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know.'"
Ooh, the plot thickens. See, this temple announcement by Jesus is that the people knew Him and they knew where He was from. What is He talking about there? He's talking about His human birth. They know He is from the town of Nazareth; that's what they know about Him. He says:
"You know Me, you know where I'm from, you are aquatinted with who I am. I am Jesus of Nazareth. You're aquatinted with where I was born, you're aquatinted with my mother and father, you're aquatinted with my earthly heritage. What you don't know is where I really came from. And what you don't know is the One who sent Me. And what you need to know, you need to know the One who sent me if you're going to have eternal life. You need to know more than Jesus was a great teacher, more than Jesus was a great man, more than He was an ethical leader. You know all those things," He says. "You know where I come from, but the One who sent me, Him you do not know."
And the irony here is they thought they knew Jesus because they knew Jesus the man. And what they needed to know was Jesus the Son of Man. What they needed to know was Jesus the Son of God. What they needed to know was if you want to get to know the Father, you have to get to know the Father through the Son. And that they didn't know.
And suddenly, they have a divided response over Jesus. Jesus has a way of doing that doesn't He? When Jesus left the crowd, usually the crowd was divided over what to do about Him. Look at verse 30, "Therefore they sought to take Him; but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come. And many of the people believe in Him, and said, 'When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than these which this Man has done?'"
See, some wanted to kill Him. Some wanted to believe in Him. Some said, "He can't possibly be the Christ because we know where He comes from." Others said, "Look, I know where He comes from, but look at what He does, look at what He says, look at what He teaches, look at what He claims--the outrageous claims He makes!"
When you look at Jesus, apart from the world around Him, He is a very, very unique person. His birth was unique. Your birth was not predicted like Jesus' birth, certainly. The place of your birth not predicted, not years and years and years in advance. Jesus' life was unique. You and I probably have never walked on water. You and I haven not fed 5,000. You and I have not lived a perfect life. This is a unique Person. His birth was unique. It made everybody angry when Jesus was born--it certainly made the government officials angry. To my knowledge, when I was born, nobody was really angry. Disappointed maybe, but not angry!
Jesus had a unique death. Not that He died on a cross, lots of people died on a cross. But He's the only one that died on a cross for other people. Jesus had a unique experience after death--He rose from the dead. Oh sure there were others who did that, but nobody else rose again never to die again. Nobody else ever rose for your justification. See, everything about this Person is unique.
And the faith that you need in Jesus, is not faith in a man from Galilee. The faith you need is not to put your hands in the hand from Galilee, because there are a lot of men from Galilee. What you need to do is put your faith in the Man who is also God who came from Heaven to die for you. And you see the difference between what these people believe about Jesus and what the real truth is? They don't know the very Christ. They know the man Jesus from Nazareth, but they don't know who that man really is.
And I have to tell you friends, this man is not Clark Kent. This is not Superman. This is not someone who's assuming an identity. This is God in the flesh. And the only way to know God in the Spirit is to get to know Him through God in the flesh. Now if you want to get to know the Father, if you want to have a dynamic relationship with God you have to have that dynamic relationship through God the Son, Jesus Christ.
So how do you view Jesus today? Wonder-worker, miracle man, Superman, great teacher, ethical person, son of the carpenter, man from Galilee? That's the way these people knew Him and He said, "You know Me that way, but the One who sent Me you don't know and He's the One I've come to give to you."
Now you don't know Jesus until you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and are saved. When you know Him that way, my friends, your future is changed forever. Not only do you have the Bread of Life, and the Eternal Water of Life, you have the Resurrection and the Life. You have the Light of the World. You have the Good Shepherd. You have all that Jesus is--because when He says, "I AM," He means, "'I AM' for you." Whatever you need Jesus is ALL you need.
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