The Authority of Jesus

You can tell a great deal about a sermon by how the people respond. I, personally, don’t ever want to hear someone say, “You did a great job today.” What thrills me is if someone is changed by the Word of God, or challenged by the Word of God, or led into greater intimacy and relationship with God through His Word and by His Spirit.  To close out the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew tells us how the people responded.

Matthew 7:28–29 – 28 And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, 29 for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

That word “astonished” matters.[1] It doesn’t mean they merely liked what Jesus said. “Oh, that was a nice speech. So, what’s for lunch?” No, it means they were struck to the core. They were overwhelmed. They were shook. They realized they had just heard something categorically different from anything they had ever heard. And Matthew tells us why to close all of this out. Jesus has authority.

That’s the final note of the Sermon on the Mount. The absolute authority of Jesus.

Jesus has ultimate authority over all things.

The crowds are astonished because Jesus doesn’t teach like their scribes. The scribes were experts in the law. They quoted sources and appealed to traditions. They built arguments by stacking references. “Rabbi so and so says this.” “Rabbi Hillel says this. Rabbi Shammai says that.” Authority, for them, was always borrowed authority from someone else.

Jesus doesn’t do that. Throughout the Sermon on the Mount He says things like, “You have heard that it was said… but I say to you.” That is a crazy claim. He doesn’t interpret the law as an outsider. He speaks as One who stands above it and fulfills it.[2]

That makes sense when we read the rest of Scripture.

Colossians 1:16–17 tells us, “16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

He made everything. All thrones, dominions, and powers trace their origin and their ongoing existence to Jesus. He doesn’t borrow authority from anybody or anything. Any authority anybody else has is on loan by Jesus. That means Jesus’ authority isn’t limited just to religious matters. He doesn’t just rule over spiritual topics. He rules over EVERYTHING. Nature. History. Governments. Good. Evil. Lives. Hearts. Heaven. Hell. EVERYTHING! It’s as Abraham Kuyper famously said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

Matthew shows us this repeatedly. Just one chapter later, in Matthew 8:27, after Jesus calms the storm, the disciples say, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” Exactly! That’s the right question! Who is this?!

The answer is that Jesus has authority because He is the Lord God. The same authority He exercises in His teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, He exercises over all creation itself. The wind listens to Him. The sea obeys Him. Demons flee at His word. Disease dissolve at His command. Death eventually gives Him back His own life.

This is why we need what’s called a “high Christology,” not just theologically, but practically. Often our theology stays theoretical. We can affirm right things about Jesus without actually living under His authority. But Jesus doesn’t allow that separation. Last week we saw that Jesus calls us to obedience. The thing Jesus calls people to is not merely belief in ideas. It is following Him. To live a high Christology means giving Jesus full reign over every aspect of our lives and giving Him glory in every aspect of our lives.

Colossians says all things are “through him and for him.” That includes our time. Our money. Our decisions. Our relationships. Our ambitions. Our private thoughts. Our public actions. Jesus’ authority is total, or it is rejected. And that includes the totality of you and me. All of our lives are under His ultimate authority.

The crowds sensed this. They realized Jesus wasn’t offering another religious option. He was claiming ultimate authority, and they were astonished.

All the content of Jesus’ teachings is Truth.

Matthew tells us the crowds were astonished not just at Jesus’ authority, but at His teaching. What He said carried weight. And it carried weight not just because it was true, but because it was Truth. Truth in the deepest sense. As Francis Schaeffer would say, “true truth.”

Ephesians 4:20–24 says, “20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Notice that phrase. “The truth is in Jesus.” Truth is not merely something Jesus teaches. Truth is bound up in who He is. Francis Schaeffer helps us here when he writes of that passage,

“Now you will notice here another element in this that is most important in the twentieth century, and in the midst of twentieth-century thinking. In the 18th verse it speaks of ‘ignorance.’ Ignorance is in relationship to content; it is not just a spirit of ignorance. In verse 21 it speaks of ‘the truth in Jesus.’ Truth is content, truth has something to do with reason. Truth has something to do with the rational creature that God has made us. The dilemma here in the internal world is not just some sort of grey fog, it is in relationship to content.”[3]

Jesus’ authority isn’t mystical or undefined. It’s grounded in content. Propositional truth. He tells us what is real, what is right, what is wrong, and what leads to life. That’s why the Sermon on the Mount addresses specifics. Anger. Lust. Truthfulness. Prayer. Money. Anxiety. Judgment. Obedience. Jesus doesn’t leave us in a fog. He speaks clearly because truth can be known. There is a right way to live and a wrong way to live.

Schaeffer presses this further when he says,

“We must emphasize content, content and then content again. This content must be based on the propositional revelation given in Scripture… We must stress that the basis for our faith is neither experience nor emotion but the truth as God has given it in verbalized, propositional form in the Scripture and which we first of all apprehend with our minds—though, of course, the whole man must act upon it.”[4]

Our faith isn’t built on abstract feelings or emotional experiences. It is built on what Jesus has done and said. And what He has done gives full credibility to all He has said.

Jesus said He was God in the flesh. They said He was a blasphemer and killed Him. And then He rose from the dead. That resurrection vindicates everything He said. It tells us He speaks with final authority and true truth about reality, morality, salvation, and eternity.

Christianity is not asking people to take a blind leap. It’s asking people to reckon with a real and risen Christ. If Jesus rose from the dead, then His authority is absolute. If He did not, then none of this matters. The crowds didn’t yet understand the resurrection. But they recognized something was different. It’s because Truth itself was standing in front of them, speaking truth to them.

Every thought, feeling, or tradition of man that contradicts God’s Word is false.

If Jesus has authority, and if His teaching is true, then…this sounds simple but it needs to be stated…anything that contradicts His Word is wrong. That includes traditions. “But we’ve always done it this way!” Cultural assumptions and popular opinions. “But everybody does it this way!” Even religious ideas that sound spiritual but don’t align with Scripture. “Name it and claim it! It’s about your ‘experience’ with God. That’s why you come to church on a Sunday. If you just have enough faith, you will be healthy and prosperous.” There are so many voices that contradict scripture, and many of them are our own, if we’re honest.

This is why the early church devoted themselves to “the apostles’ teaching.” Acts 2:42 tells us that clearly. Apostolic teaching was recognized as God’s Word because of apostolic proximity. Did it come from an apostle, or from someone directly connected to an apostle? That was one of the primary criteria for recognizing New Testament Scripture. Authority didn’t come from popularity or novelty. It came from Christ, mediated through His witnesses.

That’s why the Sermon on the Mount is so searching. It doesn’t just correct external behavior. It confronts internal loyalties. Who gets to define what’s right? Who gets to tell us how to live? Jesus claims that right for Himself. He is the only arbiter of truth. Not the culture. Not popular opinion. Not the religious elites. Not personal opinion. Jesus Himself.

We must stand in awe of Jesus.

Matthew says the crowds were astonished. They stood in awe of Jesus. That’s the right response to His authority. That’s the right response to who Jesus is. Not in awe of performances. Not awe of manipulation. Not awe of habits or traditions. Awe of Jesus Himself. Who He is. What He has done.

One of the dangers in the modern church is shifting awe away from Christ. We start evaluating worship like consumers. “Wasn’t that song good?” “Wasn’t the band great?” “Wasn’t that such a great experience?” Without realizing it, we put ourselves at the center of worship even as we claim to worship Jesus. We end up needing to be entertained into reverence.

But Scripture calls us to something deeper. To stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how He could love us, sinners condemned unclean.

I want to ask you a serious, probing, telling question: When was the last time you wept over the gospel? Not out of guilt, but out of awe? Out of gratitude. Out of wonder that the authoritative Lord of heaven and earth would take on flesh, bear your sin, and rise again to give you life?

The Sermon on the Mount ends with astonishment. That’s so fitting. Because when you realize who Jesus is and what He’s done and what He’s said, awe is the only response that makes sense. Jesus has authority. Over truth. Over life. Over eternity. And He uses that authority not to crush us, but to save us.

The final question of the Sermon on the Mount leaves us with is whether we’ll submit to Jesus. Whether we’ll trust Jesus. Whether we’ll follow Him. The crowds were astonished. The question for us is whether we’ll be obedient. That’s how Matthew leaves us. Standing before Jesus. Confronted by His authority. And called to respond.

[1] https://biblehub.com/greek/1605.htm

[2] Matthew 5:17 – “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

[3] Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality, 66

[4] Francis Schaeffer, The New Super-Spirituality, 24