THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST

Jesus is distinct from every religious leader who ever lived. How could this possibly be denied? Look at the impact that he has had on the lives of men and women. The world itself. The impact he has made upon, not just our society, but the world at large. There is no one in history to whom you can compare him.

Much of this reality comes from the things that he said. He was the greatest teacher who ever lived. But some of the things that he taught are extremely controversial. If you understand what he was saying, you have to acknowledge that there has never been any teacher like him.

He made claims that no one but God should make. He spoke as one who has authority. That means he was not speaking as one with “insight” into how we should live, but as one with authority over how we should live.

He gave commandments. Commandments that everyone was expected to obey. Commandments that everyone is still expected to obey. Commandments given to the entire human race. Ordinary teachers don’t do that.

Who, except God, has the right to tell people how they should live their lives? In every way, in every situation, he told people how they are to think and how they are to act. He gave commandments about how you treat your family members, and the brothers and sisters of your religion.

His teaching touched on every aspect of human life. That speaks of someone with authority. Complete authority. The kind of authority that only God would have. And he never backed down or backed up. Even when challenged, he continued to teach that way. And it caused him a lot of problems. Those who saw themselves as religious authorities did not take kindly to the way that he spoke. To the authority that he claimed for himself.

Whoever said not to talk about politics or religion did not get that from Jesus. He talked about whatever he wanted to talk about. He gave people instructions about their family lives. Think about that. What right did he have to tell people how to live in their own homes? How to behave toward their family members?

And he taught people about religion. How to practice their religion. Not suggestions, but commands. When he stood up and taught what we call the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5-7, he was telling people how religion is to be practiced. And he was commanding them.

Others have commanded. Others have commanded people in religion. But no one ever spoke as this man. Not only did he preach it, but witnesses say that he had the power to back it up. He performed more than enough miraculous signs to prove he had the right to speak the way that he spoke. Reliable witnesses. Many of them. And witnesses who have written their testimony down in the New Testament, which has been preserved by God for centuries.

No, there has never been anyone like Jesus. The religious leaders once asked him, in Luke chapter 20, by what power or authority he was saying and doing the things that he was doing.

This came about after he went into the temple, which was controlled by religious leaders, and drove out the moneychangers who had turned the temple of God into a business. And he had no human “credentials” to do what he did.

So they asked him what right he had to do that. What authority he had. In his response to them, he asked them a question to prove how hypocritical they were, and refused to answer their question. But he did not deny the need for authority. He just said, “I’m not going to tell you where my authority comes from.” Implying that he had it, and he knew he had it, and he knew that it was needed.

The authority of Jesus. He spoke as one who has the right to tell you how to live your life in every way. As if every aspect of your life is under his control and command. Only God has that right.

If he was just a “good religious teacher” as some claim, he would have never taught the way that he did. Men or women who are simply good religious teachers don’t speak with that kind of authority. But Jesus did.

Nor would he have ever claimed to be God or the only way to salvation. But he did. Some today tell us that he never made those claims. But they simply have not read the book honestly.

There are some things in the Bible that are difficult to understand. The claims that Jesus made about himself are not among them. It is extremely obvious what he was claiming about himself. He definitely claimed to be God.

Those who heard him speak definitely understood what he was saying. They wanted to kill him for it. Even some people today who call him the Son of God deny that he claimed to be God. They say he claimed to be the son of God, which means he did not claim to be God.

So they are misunderstanding one of the ways that he claimed to be a divine being. One of the most direct ways he said he was God, in fact, was by claiming to be the Son of God. And those who heard him say it knew that that was what he meant. Again, they wanted to kill him for it.

They tried to stone him, and he asked them what he had done to deserve that. This happened right after he called God his Father. So they told him that they were going to kill him because he made himself equal with God, even though he was just a man (John 10:33).

They were seriously mistaken about him being “just a man.” He was a man, but he was more than a man. He was also God in the flesh. But they knew what he was claiming. That’s the point. To deny that Jesus claimed to be God is ridiculous.

And again, calling himself the Son of God, and calling God his Father, was one of the ways that he made that claim. “This is why the religious leaders among the Jews wanted to kill him more than ever: not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18). Yes, they understood perfectly what he was claiming.

It was true, but they did not believe it was true.  He was and is God, but they refused to believe it. So they wanted to kill him. But the point is, the people who heard him speak knew what he meant when he called God his Father, and when he called himself the Son of God.

Why would they refuse to believe a man who had the power to raise the dead, make the blind see, walk on water, and do all sorts of other miracles, signs, and wonders to substantiate his claims?

Because by admitting that he was God, they would have to admit that they were under his authority. And do you think that these religious leaders were going to be under the authority of an untrained carpenter from Nazareth? No way.

No way would they give up the kind of power and control they had over people’s lives in order to obey Jesus. Not to mention the money that they would have lost by giving up their lofty positions of authority.

It is much of the same in man-made religion today. The religious leaders of human denominations are not going to point people only to Jesus and tell them that they only answer to him.

That would take away their control over people’s lives. Their church businesses would cease to exist. And their lofty positions of wealth would be no more.

People who care about the things of this world, and who care about controlling people, are not going to put themselves completely under the authority of Jesus Christ. They would not do it then, and they will not do it now.

Someone might object to this truth that claiming to be the Son of God meant that Jesus claimed to be God by pointing out that the Bible says we are sons and daughters of God, too. But that does not mean that we are God just because we are children of God.

And this is where the truth of John 3:16 comes in. Jesus was God’s “only begotten son,” as the King James Version says. That means he was his unique son. One of a kind.

Jesus was the real Son of God, whereas we are adopted into the family of God because of Jesus. There is nothing complicated about it. God sees us as his children because of what his son Jesus has done.

We become children of God because of the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior. This is why Hebrews chapter 2 tells us that Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters. He was willing to die to get us into the family. There are mysteries here that we will never understand on this side of eternity, but the mysteries do not complicate what is simple.

Jesus is the Son of God, meaning he is God. We are the children of God if we are in Christ—if we accept Christ, and have a relationship with him and love him.

Many believe that Jesus was a good man, but they do not believe that he was God in the flesh, or that he is the one to whom we must answer. That we are under his authority. But the claims of Christ are not the claims that a good man makes if they are not true.

Good men or women do not go around telling people how they are to live every aspect of their lives. They might offer advice when it is asked for or they might intervene when they see someone hurting themselves. But they do not go around acting as though they have authority to give direction about everything in someone’s life.

Jesus did that. If he did not have the authority to do that, he was not a good man. And if he was not God, then he did not have the authority to do that.

Another thing a good person will not do is claim to be God. The only way that a good person would claim to be God is if it was true. And it’s not true for anyone who has ever lived on this earth, except Jesus.

Yet people look at him and see that he was a good man. The testimony of his life proves that he was a good man. The fruit of his life proves that he was a good man.

So what do they do about his claims of deity? His claims to be God? There’s only one of two things they can do.

They have to either accept that he was telling the truth, which is going to make them very unpopular in this world, and is going to mean that they will have to give up everything that is opposed to him and his ways in order to follow him.

Or, they will have to find ways to try to deny that he actually claimed to be God. They recognize the dilemma. And that is why they spend so much time either arguing against his life and saying that he was not good, or they do what most people do—they just deny that he claimed to be what he obviously claimed to be. God.

You cannot have it both ways by saying that he was a good moral man but he was not the Son of God. So stop this nonsense. If you don’t want to follow him, just admit that you don’t want to follow him. If you hate him, just admit that you hate him.

But stop the silly game of trying to avoid the inescapable implication that you are under his authority if he is God. He has the right to tell you how to live your life in every respect.

If you will just admit that the things he claimed are true, and that you are under his authority, your life will be lived in the way that it is supposed to be lived, and you will have a purpose and a happiness that you never dreamed possible. Joy will follow you wherever you go.

You have no friend like Jesus. He is what life is all about and he loves you. But to benefit from it, you have to love him back. And you have to submit to his authority.

You have to obey him. The only two words you have to know in order to follow Jesus are, “Yes, sir.” He is Lord, which means he speaks and we obey. That is what the authority of Christ means, and that is what it means that he is the Son of God.

Clearly, he claimed that he was God, and either he lied, was crazy, or was telling the truth. And of course, he was telling the truth. You could not possibly read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and ever think that this man told a lie. Or that he was even capable of telling a lie. The testimony of his life just simply will not bear that out to any reasonable person.

Jesus did not just preach a series of doctrines. He did not put the emphasis on the words that he said, but on himself. He pointed, not to his teachings, but to himself.

And that is what the apostles and prophets who wrote the New Testament did, as well. They always pointed to Christ the person and our faith in him. No other religion does that in the same way that Christianity does.

All other religions emphasize the teachings. But Jesus emphasized himself. Himself as the way, the truth and the life. Himself as the final authority on all matters. The fact that we are to obey him rises from the fact that he was and is God.

Other religions may be judged on the validity of what they teach. In other words, one could say that this or that is a good religion because the things that it teaches will make people be better and nicer. And therefore it is a good religion on that basis. Or, if it does not make the world a better place, it is not a good religion.

But because of the claims of Jesus about himself, you cannot judge Christianity based just on what he taught. You have to judge it based on who he is. Because what he taught grows from his authority as God. And if he was not God, then nothing he said should be believed in the ultimate sense.

But because he is God, everything he said is to be believed. And the number one thing that must be believed is that he is the Son of God and the way of salvation.

His messsage was himself. The clear and unmistakable claims that Jesus made are either true or they are not. They point to the fact that Jesus saw himself as the one way of salvation for all mankind.

What will we do with that claim? Will we be so ridiculous as to say that he lied? That this man Jesus cannot be trusted to tell the truth?

Again, look at the fruit of his life. Look at the impact he has made on the lives of men and women. The impact he has made on the world. You can love him or hate him, but you cannot ignore him.

It is through the resurrection of Christ that we come to believe and know that all his claims are true. If he came back to life after being killed, then that would certainly verify every claim that he made.

The resurrection of Christ proves that he was who he claimed to be. Hundreds of witnesses gave their lives saying that they saw him. Twelve men in particular—the apostles—spent three years in his presence, and then sealed the testimony of the resurrection with their blood.

They claimed that they saw him alive after he was killed. That is a claim that cannot be ignored. Eyewitness testimony is the most powerful testimony in history. Why not stop arguing about Jesus and start believing the facts?

To know Christ is to know eternal life. It is to rest upon the promises of the true and living God. God has reached out to us in the person of Christ.

He sought us because he loves us. With God, all things are possible. We can be reconciled to God the Father through the death of his son. That is the most important news in the world today. We seek the Lord because Jesus came to seek and save the lost.

So give him your life and live under his authority. He is God, which means he is your creator. Which means that he has the right to tell you what to do. Which means that he knows what is best for you. Which means that if you do what he tells you to do, your life will have the purpose and meaning that it needs. But you will only find it in God.

Dewayne Dunaway