Who gave you the right?
Text: Matthew 21:23–32
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus’ authority is challenged, He shows His wisdom that reveals who He really is—the Son of God sent into the world. He then goes a step further to show His opposers just what it means to reject Him as the Son of God in the parable.
We can question Jesus in a good or bad way.
Jesus has been causing a bit of a commotion. At this point in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus has just arrived into Jerusalem with a Messiah’s welcome and turned over the tables in the temple, calling it “My house”. No wonder the people who are currently in control of the temple come to Jesus with a pretty big question. “By what authority are you doing these things, and who have you this authority?”
In other words, “Who gave you the right to come into our temple like you own the place?”
Jesus could have given them a pretty straight answer, but there’s an opportunity here to dig a little deeper. In the end, Jesus exposes their lack of faith in Him and also their fear of the people.
It is not a bad thing to question Jesus. In fact, asking questions of Jesus can be a beautiful expression of faith. Take the book of Psalms: the psalms of lament are all about asking God why He does what He does, even to the point of blaming Him for our struggles at times.
God invites us to come to Him with all our questions, even if we bring them from a position of hurt, pain, or struggle. You could even say especially when they come from those places.
In that sense, God is the perfect one to take our complaints to because He is always ready to listen and He also has power to do something about them. We also know that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts aren’t our thoughts (Is. 55:8–9)—we often won’t get a straight answer because it’s not for us to know.
Questioning God in this way is quite different from attempting to manipulate God with our questions as the religious leaders were doing. Ultimately, we do this to try either to get ourselves off the hook or God off the throne.
Jesus doesn’t need our permission to be Lord.
Whether our questions of Jesus are sincere or not depend on whether we come from a place of humility or self-made authority before Him.
The religious leaders act as if they have the right to grant Jesus permission to exercise His authority. Their tone (“Who gave you the right?”) assumes they are in a position to bestow their blessing on Jesus to continue, or to prohibit Him from His course, depending on whether or not He meets their criteria.
Can we be guilty of the same thing? Do we try to make Jesus come to us on our terms, in a way that we want?
Do we seize control of His work rather than allowing His Spirit to work in and through us as He pleases?
Is our spirituality like a tap that we turn on and off at our own choosing, rather than living in a constant state of humility before God? When we live in this way, we challenge Jesus’ authority and take charge for ourselves.
This is far from a faithful statement which says, “Father, help me understand Your authority. Help me see how and why You do what You do.”
We know that we’ll never fully understand the will of God, but He does allow us to see glimpses from time to time. Ultimately, we are called to humble ourselves before the Lord our God and submit to His authority.
Jesus has all authority, not because He has outwitted the chief priests, but because it has been given to Him by His Father, because Jesus is the perfect Son. He doesn’t tell them about His authority just yet, but He will soon demonstrate His complete authority by rising from the dead, which is same as the authority He exercised when He taught and healed.
This is also the very same authority He exercises as He works through His Church today, sent in His name, baptising and teaching.
Jesus always receives the repentant.
Jesus isn’t worried about having His authority challenged—mere humans don’t stand a chance against the Lord God Almighty. What He is concerned about, and why He then tells the parable, is the blatant unbelief and rejection that the religious leaders are showing.
A one-sentence summary of the parable might say this: Jesus wants your whole self, not just your verbal commitment.
The religious leaders are falling for the same trap as the prophet Samuel did centuries earlier when it came to selecting the future king of Israel from Jesse’s sons. Everyone was sure it was one of the seven older brothers and not the youngest one still out in the field.
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
The younger son in the parable initially disappointed his father and refused to do what was asked of him, but then something happened. Something caused him to “change his mind”. The Greek word here expresses a sense of remorse or regret. He realises he has let his dad down and makes a change.
Notice how he doesn’t go back and try to win his father back or give an extravagant apology—he just gets on with what he was asked to do.
This is precisely the “change of mind” that the religious leaders refuse to make. Jesus says:
“For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.” (Mt. 21:32)
At the beginning of every worship service we hold, the very first thing Jesus does is offer us an opportunity to “change our minds”—turn away from our sin and towards our Lord who became sin for us. We call that repentance.
Since He is the perfect Son of God, Jesus has no reason to repent. And yet, He humbled Himself even to the point of death on a cross. That death means that even the worst of the worst, the tax collectors and prostitutes among us, have a chance of being saved from death ourselves.
Thanks be to God, at whose name every knee shall bow. May our tongues confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, the absolute authority, over life and death itself. Amen.
