Understanding the Authority of Jesus

In Mark 1:22 the folks in the synagogue of Capernaum are astonished at Jesus’ teaching. This guy isn’t teaching like their scribes. He is teaching with authority. But wait…didn’t the scribes have authority? Didn’t people used to look up to the scribes and Pharisees? How then is the authority of Jesus different than the authority of the scribes.

I feel a bit pretentious by giving this example but I’ll risk it because I think it will help to understand what is meant by the authority of Jesus.

I’d consider myself somewhat of an authority on John Newton. I’ve spent about 3-5 years devouring his writing. If you ask me what Newton believed on a topic I can give you a pretty good answer. I’ve even got a book swirling around in my head on Newton that I hope to get published at some day. And so if you compare me to your average Joe, I’m kind of an authority on Newton. (Of course if you compare me to others I’m a dolt when it comes to Newton).

Imagine you would ask me a question about Newton. My answer, though very informed, would need to start with the words, “I think” or even “I’m pretty confident”. This is the type of authority that the scribes had. Even if they wanted to walk around as if they had all the answers at the end of the day their authority is a derived authority. They have to say, “I think” or “I’m pretty confident…”

Now contrast this with the books and articles that I’ve written. If someone were to ask me a question I wouldn’t have to say, “I think the author meant…” I could say unequivocally, “Here is what I meant when I wrote X”. I am the authority on Torn to Heal. I’m not the authority on the doctrine of suffering. But if you have a question about the book I wrote—then all you have to do is ask, and I can tell you precisely what is meant.

Jesus’ authority is like this. And that is why it was so much different than the scribes and Pharisees. They taught with authority, yes. But it was a derived authority. They could even be correct on occasion. But even still, they could only say, “I believe what Isaiah meant was…”

But not Jesus. Jesus could say, “Here is what was meant when Isaiah was inspired to write…”  And so he taught with real authority and it was astonishing. Which of course means that we’re profoundly missing something if we analyze Jesus on the same playing field as scribes and Pharisees…and that goes for scribes and Pharisees of even the 21st century.