The Amazing Authority of Jesus
Matthew 7:28-29
Last time we completed our look at the actual teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. We spent almost a year reading, studying, and applying the words of Jesus to His disciples. I hope that you have found His words to be as life-transforming as I have. His words have encouraged me, challenged me, humbled me, convicted me, instructed me, and caused me to love my Lord Jesus Christ all the more.
Matthew concludes this chapter Matthew 7:28-29 by giving us people’s immediate reaction to Jesus’ teaching. He writes, “And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (Matt. 7:28-29).
These verses serve as a transition to the next narrative section in Matthew’s Gospel. In the next two chapters (Matthew 8-9), Matthew describes a series of breath-taking miracles that our Lord performed. Jesus cleansed a leper (Matt. 8:1-4). In Capernaum, He healed a centurion’s servant by simply speaking a word from a distance (Matt. 8:5-13). He then healed Peter’s mother-in-law (Matt. 8:14-15) and spent the evening healing the multitudes of people who came to Him at Peter’s door (Matt. 8:16-17). He calmed a storm out at sea; causing His disciples to say, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” (Matt. 8:23-27). He cast out demons; who cry as they come out, “What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?” (Matt. 8:28-31). He healed a paralyzed man, proving that He had the authority to forgive sins (Matt. 9:1-8). He healed a woman with a twelve-year-long illness when she simply touched the hem of His garment (Matt. 9:20-22). He raised a girl from the dead (Matt. 9:18-19; 23-26). He gave sight to two blind men (Matt. 9:27-31). When He cast a demon out of a mute man and the mute man spoke, the people said, “It was never seen like this in Israel!” (Matt. 9:32-33).
So these two verses connect the amazing things Jesus taught with the amazing things Jesus did. His teaching and His miracles go together. His miracles confirmed the authority of His message. As Nicodemus confessed to Jesus in John 3, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him” (John 3:2). You cannot separate the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount from the Jesus who worked miracles. The teacher of the Sermon on the Mount “is the same supernatural, dogmatic, divine Jesus who is to be found everywhere else.”[1]
Matthew says, “…the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (Matt. 7:28-29). The word “astonished” (Greek: ἐκπλήσσω, ekplēssō) literally means to “strike out” of your senses by a sudden shock, be stunned in amazement, unable to grasp what is happening. They were completely blown away! How long has it been since a sermon did that to you? But notice that the people were not just amazed at Jesus’ teaching, they were amazed at Him! His listeners were just as astonished at Him—His manner, His authority, His uniqueness—as they were at what He said. The question that Matthew forces upon us is not, “What do you think about this teaching?”, but “Who on earth is this teacher?” This was certainly the reaction of those who heard Jesus teach that day.[2]
Here is something for us to think about. If we spend a year studying the words of the Sermon on The Mount but don’t come away with our attention fixed upon Jesus, we have missed the point. If we do not come away more in awe of Him, more in love with Him, and more ready to give ourselves to Him, then we have failed to grasp their true intent. The words of this Sermon are meant to drive us to the place in which we fall before King Jesus, the Son of God, seek God’s great mercy and saving grace through Him, and rise up and follow Him as Lord of our lives.[3]
What struck His hearers was Jesus’ extraordinary authority. John Stott, in his book “The Message of the Sermon on the Mount”, details seven aspects of Jesus’ authority as demonstrated in His teaching: his authority as the teacher, as the Christ, as the Lord, as the Savior, as the judge, as the Son of God, and as God.[4]
I want us just to consider Jesus’ authority under two headings today: the authority of His teaching and the authority of His person.
1. The Authority of His Teaching
Matthew stresses Jesus’ role as “Teacher” Jesus didn’t merely preach to them, but “taught” them (didaskõn), and Matthew says that people were astonished, not at His “sermon”, but at His “teaching” (didachã). The Jews had many teachers, what was so unique about Jesus’ teaching?
In a word: authority, “…He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” (Matt. 7:29). When the scribes taught, they taught appealing to the traditions they had received from other authorities, other rabbis. The scribes had no authority of their own. Their only authority lay in the authorities they were constantly quoting. The scribes would teach, “Rabbi so-and-so says this…” Jesus never appealed to any other teacher. Jesus did not teach like a scribe, nor even like the Old Testament prophets. They would speak a word that they received from God saying, “Thus says the Lord…” (420 times in the OT. First in Exo. 4:22) Jesus never used that phrase. He spoke in His own name with His own authority the words that were not only His Father’s words but His words (John 7:16).
How did Jesus teach? By His own authority. Six times in His sermon Jesus says, “Assuredly I say to you…” (Matt. 5:18; 6:2, 5, 16, 25, 29). Over and over again He says things like “You have heard that it was said… But I say to you” (Matt. 5:21-22; also Matt. 5:28, 32, 34, 44).
Jesus spoke with authority on the most profound subjects imaginable. He taught what it means to be blessed by God in His kingdom (Matt. 5:1-12). He taught the high standards of God’s righteousness (Matt. 5:22-48). He speaks of heaven (5:3, 10, 20; 6:20; 7:21), of hell (5:22, 20, 30; 7:13, 23), of final judgment (5:19, 20-22; 25-26; 7:1-2, 19, 23, 27), and of eternal rewards (5:3-12, 19, 46; 6:4, 18)—all in one sermon! Jesus was so certain of the validity of His teaching that He said people would enter the kingdom and be judged by what they do with His words (Matt. 7:21-27).
Jesus taught with authority, His own authority as the Son of God.
And that brings us to
2. The Authority of His Person.
The most astonishing aspect of Jesus’ teaching is what He said about Himself. No other preacher would have dared to say the things that Jesus said!
Jesus taught, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake” (Matt. 5:11). Think about that! He said people would be “blessed” if they were persecuted for His sake. He told them that when they are persecuted for His sake, they should rejoice and be exceedingly glad, “for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:12). In other words, He was daring to say that when the prophets of old were persecuted for the sake of God, it was equivalent to His followers being persecuted for His own sake! The implication is unavoidable. If he is likening his disciples to God’s prophets, he is likening himself to God.[5]
Or consider this: He dared to tell His listeners, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.” (Matt. 5:17). Jesus dared to say that He came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets! This was basically a claim to be the great ‘Promise’ of the Scriptures. In John 5, Jesus said to the Jews, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me” (John 5:39).
Jesus taught His disciples to take the revolutionary step of calling God “Father” in a personal and intimate way. He says things like, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). Or, He says things like this: “. . . Love your enemies . . . that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:44-45); or, “. . . You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). Fourteen times in this sermon He invites us to call God our “Father” (cf. Matt. 6:1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 15, 18, 26, 32; 7:11). Jesus even teaches us to pray in a completely revolutionary way when He says, “In this manner, therefore, pray: ‘Our Father in heaven . . .” (Matt. 6:9).
But think also of how careful He was in how He taught this to us. In all these saying to His disciples, He uses the phrase “your Father“. And when He teaches His disciples to pray together, they are to pray “Our Father“. But when speaking of Himself along with us, He never uses the phrase, “our Father”. Instead, He says, “My Father“. Like in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven,” He says, “but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.’” This is because He had a unique relationship with the Father as the only begotten Son of God – a unique relationship that we can not share along with Him. Later in Matthew 11:27, Jesus taught about this unique relationship He had with His Father saying, “All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” Even when He rose from the dead, He made a distinction and told Mary to tell the disciples, “. . . I am ascending to My Father and Your Father, and to My God and your God” (John 20:17).
Near the end of His sermon, Jesus said that when the great Day of Judgment will come, it will be He Himself that people would be standing before! He said, “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’” (Matt. 7:22). What a claim to make! What’s more, He clearly made Himself out to be the Judge! He said, “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Matt. 7:23).
At the very end of His sermon, as He calls forth a response to all that He has said in this sermon, He says that obedience to His instruction is what made the difference between someone being “wise” or being “a fool”. He said, “Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. … But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand …” (Matt. 7:24, 27). Who would dare to say such a thing but the Son of God Himself?
What Jesus says about Himself is truly astonishing. And yet, the claims of Jesus were put forward so naturally, modestly, and indirectly that many people never even notice them in the Sermon on the Mount. But they are there; we cannot ignore them and still retain our integrity.[6] Jesus says at the end of Matthew’s Gospel what is true throughout the whole book: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18).
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught with such authority that He forces us to make a decision about Him. Is Jesus truly the Son of God, the Savior of the World, the Lord of Glory, the Judge of all the earth? If you haven’t come away from this study of the Sermon on The Mount astonished over Jesus and who He claimed to be, then you haven’t yet heard it as you should! The Sermon on the Mount is meant to point us to Jesus, the Son of God. It is meant to drive us to believe in Him and worship Him.
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[1] John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 213.
[2] Stott, ibid.
[3] Greg Allen, The Greatest Preacher. https://www.bethanybible.org/archive/2005/070305.htm I drew from some of Allen’s points in developing this sermon.
[4] Stott, ibid, 213-220.
[5] Stott, ibid., 221.
[6] Stott, ibid. 222
