Tell us, by what authority are You doing these things? Or who is he who gave You this authority?

 

 Now it happened on one of those days, as He taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel, that the chief priests and the scribes, together with the elders, confronted Him and spoke to Him, saying, "Tell us, by what authority are You doing these things?  Or who is he who gave You this authority?"  But He answered and said to them, "I also will ask you one thing, and answer Me:  The baptism of John -- was it from heaven or from men?"  And they reasoned among themselves, saying, "If we say, 'From heaven,' He will say, 'Why then did you not believe him?'  But if we say, 'From men,' all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet."  So they answered that they did not know where it was from.  And Jesus said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things."

 

- Luke 20:1–8 

 

On Saturday we read that as Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace!  But now they are hidden from your eyes.  For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation."  Then He went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it, saying to them, "It is written, 'My house is a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.'"  And He was teaching daily in the temple.  But the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people sought to destroy Him, and were unable to do anything; for all the people were very attentive to hear Him.

 

  Now it happened on one of those days, as He taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel, that the chief priests and the scribes, together with the elders, confronted Him and spoke to Him, saying, "Tell us, by what authority are You doing these things?  Or who is he who gave You this authority?"  But He answered and said to them, "I also will ask you one thing, and answer Me:  The baptism of John -- was it from heaven or from men?"  And they reasoned among themselves, saying, "If we say, 'From heaven,' He will say, 'Why then did you not believe him?'  But if we say, 'From men,' all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet."  So they answered that they did not know where it was from.  And Jesus said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things."  My study Bible comments that these things about which Christ's authority is question by the religious leaders include Christ's Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem (Luke 19:35-38), His cleansing of the temple (in Saturday's reading; see above), and His preaching (they questioned Him as He taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel).  These elders confront Jesus, my study Bible explains, as it was the duty of the priestly descendants of Levi to manage the temple.  Christ is descended from the Judah (Luke 3:33), but He is the High Priest "according to the order of Melchizedek" (Psalm 110:4), a priestly line which is much greater than that of Levi, for His authority is from the Father. 

 

How do we think of authority?  Jesus acts with His own authority, a kind of autonomy, which is unheard of to these religious leaders in the temple.  They don't recognize that He is the divine Son, even though He refers to Himself by a messianic title, Son of Man (Daniel 7:13-14).   As my study Bible points out, He's not a part of the Levitic priesthood.  (That is, those who inherit the priestly roles in the temple.)  So, this question of authority becomes all-important when we consider our faith.  But to think about the question appropriately, we need to consider where any and all authority comes from in the first place.  Jesus Himself gives us an example of authority to consider when He mentions John the Baptist.  Like many prophets before him, John didn't have a mandate from the powerful in high positions in the society to carry out his ministry of baptism and repentance in preparation from the Messiah.  He had no recognized authoritative position.  Although John the Baptist's father, Zacharias, was a Levitical priest, and Luke's Gospel tells us that his mother, Elizabeth, was "of the daughters of Aaron" (Luke 1:5-7), John the Baptist followed a different pattern, a path set for him by the Holy Spirit, and lived a life of radical poverty dedicated purely to God and the message entrusted to him.  So where did his authority come from?  Jesus poses this question to the religious authorities to posit a kind of authority that is only recognized through a willing perception of the things of God, a response from a heart capable of responding to God.  In his Epistle, St. James, "the Lord's brother" (Galatians 1:19) and first bishop of Jerusalem, writes the following, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures" (James 1:17-18).  Verse 17 is famously included in the Prayer Behind the Ambon, a prayer that is included in every Divine Liturgy in the Orthodox Churches.  If "every good and perfect gift" comes from above, from the Father of lights (our heavenly Father), then we must consider God the Father the Source of all, as is declared in the Nicene Creed.  So, this would include the gift of authority, true authority.  Clearly this is the guiding principle of Christ's entire ministry, as He speaks over and over again of His loyalty to God the Father, even invoking the Father in His response to the temptations of the devil just prior to beginning His public ministry (Luke 4:1-13).  When Christ begins His first public act of ministry, He reads from the Book of Isaiah, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to  preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."  Subsequently, Jesus says to those who listen, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing," a declaration that He is anointed by the Spirit to do what He does (Luke 4:16-21).  Tellingly, Jesus is immediately and violently rejected by His neighbors in His hometown of Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30).  This anointing is witnessed by John the Baptist when he baptizes Jesus and the Spirit descends "like a dove" upon Him (Luke 3:21-22).  So, we have a sense of Christ's authority and where it comes from.  When Jesus brings up John the Baptist to the religious authorities, let us note how once again it is the deep-seated response of the people to the truth of John's ministry that these leaders fear.  Jesus wisely senses this, of course, and so the men who question Christ will not respond.  Let's take note also of Jesus' response:  He says, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things."  We are repeatedly told that the Lord responds in kind to our own impulses; in order to be forgiven, we must forgive, for example (Matthew 6:15); here, these men refuse to answer a direct question from Him, and so neither do they receive an answer.  Psalm 18 reads, "With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful; with a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless; with the pure You will show Yourself pure; and with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd, for You will save the humble people, but will bring down haughty looks" (Psalm 18:25-27).  If we look once again at the Prayer Behind the Ambon, written by St. John Chrysostom and composed nearly completely of Scripture, we see that it begins this way, addressing God: "O Lord, who blesses those who bless You and sanctifies those who put their trust in You."  Christ lives all His life by the authority of God, turning to the Father for each new step of His ministry, for every direction, even those He will be loathe to take (Luke 22:42).  He tells the disciples, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father . . . The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.  Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves" (John 14:9-11).  Christ's authority comes from the Father, an authority which conveys all other authority, just as every good and perfect gift comes from above -- even though there are those who are deaf and blind to the gifts from heaven.