Jesus’ Authority and Ours

Context
‘Tell us by what authority you are doing these things’
‘These things’ are the preceding events: triumphal entry, cleansing the temple. Jesus has clearly made an all-out challenge to the established Jewish authorities, and he seems to have popular support. This is a showdown.
Their question, ‘by what [kind of] authority?’ is designed to discredit Jesus. They see themselves as the established authorities. They represent the priests, the scribes and the elders – all three types of existing authority.
‘Who gave you this authority?’ They also see themselves as the source of authority. Their insinuation is that, unless they had given Jesus authority, then Jesus could not possibly have authority. Jesus’ response about John asks them to consider the true source of authority. They are stumped.
The authorities had failed to remember that their authority was delegated, not their own. They thought of themselves as the sole source of authority. This is the human problem. It always has been and always will be in this age. We always want to rule independently of God. We want to set our own terms, to rule without reference to God.
So, Jesus turns to the people (not the authorities) and tells them a story. But it is not a spur-of-the-moment creation. Jesus takes stories from Israel’s history and re-tells them in his ingenious way.
Old stories Jesus references
Isaiah 5:1-7 - vineyard identified as Israel.
Isaiah 8:13-15 - The LORD himself is a stone that causes men to stumble.
Isaiah 28:16 - the rock is a foundation for a new temple.
Psalm 118:22-23 - victory parade following a great salvation against the odds. Post-exile, perhaps even when the foundation of Ezra's temple was laid. I.e. re-establishing the temple and covenant of God's people.
Ezra 3:10-11, seems like they celebrated with something similar to Psalm 118.
Daniel 2:44-45 - a stone that crushes the kingdoms of the earth and establishes God's own kingdom.
The Parable
v.9 The vineyard is Israel. The owner is God. This situation of an absentee landowner and tenant farmers was common in Roman-occupied Israel.
v. 12 Mistreating and even killing the servants was an act of defiance, of refusing to pay their dues. But they could not bring about a change in their status as tenants this way.
v. 13 Owner = kyrios, the Greek OT name for God, which replaced YHWH in the Hebrew.
Jesus is retelling the old story. The servants would clearly represent the prophets.
But he adds a new element – the son. Who is this son? In the OT, the Messiah was called the ‘son of God.’
Note that the owner is even willing to forgive the mistreatment of his servants, and the breach of their agreement.
It was a great risk to send his son. But that’s how much he wanted reconciliation.
v. 14 ‘the inheritance will be ours’. This is clearly flawed thinking. Did they expect that they could usurp the owner and face no consequences? This is no longer just defiance. This is all-out rebellion. They are seeking a change of order.
vv. 15-16 There is no cliff-hanger, no question of how the tenants will respond. Jesus simply prophetically pronounces what will happen. How poignant coming from his own lips! The consequences are similarly a given conclusion.
The outcome of the story hinges on the response to the son. Even the murders of the servants could be forgiven. Even disobedience to the Law could be forgiven. But their response to the son was critical. In attacking the son, they were attacking his father.
The crowd clearly understood the message behind what Jesus was saying. They had obviously understood his references to the old stories.
v. 17 NB the sudden change to talking about a rock. Confusing? Jesus links the idea of the son to that of the rock through a Hebrew wordplay (ben/eben).
The OT imagery of the rock is all tied up in the establishment of a new temple. It had supposedly been fulfilled in Ezra’s temple, but Jesus talk of it as something that is yet to be fulfilled. And now the rock is identified with the son.
Throughout the OT, the stories of the Messianic ‘son’ and the temple have been kept distinct. Now they are brought together in a radical innovation – with a pun!
All these things had not yet come to pass, but within 40 more years they had.
Application: ‘by what authority?’
1 Peter 2:5-10
We are now the ‘royal priesthood’, called upon to ‘proclaim the excellencies of him who called [us]’. We bear the authority of Christ.
We might ask ourselves, or be asked, ‘by what authority?’
But there are 2 errors into which we can fall:
1. The error of the Jewish authorities, of assuming we hold inherent authority because of who we are. Relying and insisting on rights are privileges.
2. The error of passivity, assuming that we have no authority. Succumbing to the voices that tell us to keep our faith private and not challenge anyone with Christ’s gospel.
The Christian way involves tension. We hold delegated authority because of who Christ is, and who he has made us, in spite of what we were.
We are called and empowered to live, preach and demonstrate the Gospel. Silence and apathy are not options for a disciple of Jesus.
We are called and empowered to remain humble and give glory to Jesus. We can do nothing truly good without Him.