Meeting With Divine Authority | Matthew 21:23-27

Scripture

• Matthew 21:23–27

About this sermon

Introduction: There is a great HUMBLING DAY on its way. It will be a time when sinful and proud men meet with the supreme authority and holy assessment of God. A time will come when all the great ones of this world, who do not know Christ, will stand before the living God and hear His verdict on their sinful lives. Their imagined greatness, their puffed-out chests, their worldly wisdom — which includes all the ways that they have covered up their corruption and thought they got away with — all of it will meet with the one who knows all things and will hold them to account for all things. On that same day, people who have imagined that commonness is a virtue — that commonness avoids judgment — will meet with the same assessment and authority. Those who have felt superior because they didn’t belong to the ruling class, will meet with the same exposure of their pride — they will come face to face with their sinfulness. ESV Revelation 20:11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. When our Lord was on this earth, men met with that authority. The presence of Jesus meant men meeting with the authority of God — and that authority was an exposing power. True religion — as represented by the Son of God Himself — exposes false religion. Purity has an exposing power that is felt by everything in the shadows and in the darkness. AND WHEREVER EVIL EXISTS AND WANTS TO CONTINUE, THERE IS AN INSTINCTIVE FEAR THAT RECOGNIZES THAT EXPOSING AUTHORITY AND WISHES TO BE RID OF IT. We see this throughout the ministry of Jesus, but we see in a pronounced way in the final days leading to the cross. HERE, WE WILL SEE IT AT THE TEMPLE. Our Lord is teaching in the temple on Tuesday. The day following His cleansing of that temple. And the religious leaders who did nothing to stop Him the day before, now demand an account for what He did. After retreating, no doubt with some sense of shock, they now seek to reassert their authority in a way that also seeks to entrap the Son of God. Front and center throughout this first encounter (questions and teaching will continue all the way to chapter 24) is the question of authority (rights). • A QUESTION ABOUT AUTHORITY (vs.23) One of the amazing things to witness in the life of Christ — and something that speaks to what the religious authorities of Israel instinctively recognized — was how much freedom they afforded Jesus until the day He gave Himself into their hands to offer Himself for our sins. This is a man who attacked the nerve center of Jewish religious authority when He turned temple business practices upside down just the day before. He is not arrested. He walks right back into that temple the next day and makes it His classroom. Mark says that He was walking around in the temple. ESV Mark 11:27 And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, It is most likely that he is walking around the outer part of the temple — the porticos surrounding the court of the Gentiles. THERE HE IS CONFRONTED You find three categories of religious leaders (described in general terms) mentioned throughout the gospel accounts. Chief priests, scribes, and elders. The chief priests were LEADING priests and members of the Sanhedrin. It would have included the current high priest, and former high priests, and other influential priests. The elders were heads of influential lay families, and members of the ruling body called the Sanhedrin. The scribes are the legal experts and teachers of the law of God. Here, the chief priests and elders confront Jesus. D.A. Carson — “ ‘Chief priests’ refers to the hierarchy, made up of the current high priest and any who had formerly occupied this post (since Herod, contrary to the law, made fairly frequent changes in the high priesthood), and a substantial number of other leading priests (cf. Josephus, Ant. 20.180 [8.8]; J.W. 4.159–60 [3.9]; the same Greek word (archiereus) is used for “high priests” and “chief priests”). The “teachers of the law,” or “scribes” as other EV call them, were experts in the OT and in its copious oral tradition. Their work was not so much copying out OT manuscripts (as the word “scribes” suggests) as teaching the OT. Because much civil law was based on the OT and the interpretations of the OT fostered by the leaders, the “scribes” were also “lawyers” (cf. 22:35: “expert in the law”).