Authorities

John 7:48 Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?


48 μή τις ἐκ τῶν ἀρχόντων ἐπίστευσεν εἰς αὐτὸν ἢ ἐκ τῶν Φαρισαίων;

This is the question the Pharisees asked the "officers" who they sent as something of a goon squad to arrest Jesus. The officers refused to do this because they heard the power of Jesus' preaching. They understood something that the Pharisees could not grasp. Jesus was special and His preaching demanded a response.

The problem of course is that Jesus threatened the Pharisees' way of life. If He was right then they were clearly wrong. You don't just take a group of people who have made it their business to be the most right of all the people in society and then expect them to gracefully step aside. The Pharisees weren't going down without a fight. In a couple of chapters we will see how it all comes together.

This is clearly evident in the church today. It started with Rome and the Reformation. You expect to take a corrupt Pope like Leo and threaten him with the Bible? I sincerely doubt that he cared about anything beyond his own glory if the history about him is even partially true. But if Luther was right then that would destroy his whole way of life.

And lest we get on our Protestant high horses about this, take a look at the average megachurch. I just heard a story about a megachurch that could only offer $350/month to a church-planter because of budget issues. This was coming from a senior pastor's office that had a glass wall with a view of the Rockies. I suspect that most megachurches have the same problem. A severely obese person's heart works as hard when he is sitting as mine does when I go out for a run. Because I'm in decent physical shape I can push my body a little bit to run up a hill, climb stairs, etc. The obese person is always in a state of being pushed, so there is nowhere for his body to go.

I hope that the illustration is clear. To embrace the ideas in David Platt's Radical or even Francis Chan's Crazy Love is a threat to the way of life set up by today's churchianity. Why should we have small churches focused on discipleship? Does Mark Driscoll do it that way? How about C.J. Mahaney? John Piper? James MacDonald? No! They all have big churches with home/life/fellowship/small groups. Why should we do small churches.

Well, despite the success of these men's ministries (and I do think that they are all doing great works) I think that we need to let the New Testament guide us instead. Please hear me that I do not think that they are Pharisees either. My point is simply that the leaders and authorities of the day should always be trumped by Jesus. There is just no other way to look at it.

Who is your authority?

True Authority

Matthew 7:28 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.



28 Καὶ ἐγένετο ὅτε ἐτέλεσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς τοὺς λόγους τούτους, ἐξεπλήσσοντο οἱ ὄχλοι ἐπὶ τῇ διδαχῇ αὐτοῦ· 29  ἦν γὰρ διδάσκων αὐτοὺς ὡς ἐξουσίαν ἔχων καὶ οὐχ ὡς οἱ γραμματεῖς αὐτῶν.

This is the end of the Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus has finished rocking the worlds of His hearers.  He took what they knew about the Law and intensified it.  He also made the point that salvation is not something that comes easily or universally.  It is a narrow door and only a few will walk through it, despite what they think.  In fact, there will be those who seemingly bear fruit, but He still does not know them.  These are difficult things to hear.

This passage really sums it all up though.  It tells us that the crowds ἐξεπλήσσοντο.  This is an imperfect passive.  Basically, what we get is that His teaching blew them away.  Why were they so surprised?  He taught ὡς ἐξουσίαν ἔχων.  The word ἔχων is a present active participle.  This gives us a sense that they realized that Jesus had authority as He spoke.  He was in the state of one having authority.

What does this mean?  It means that unlike those who simply regurgitated the Law back to them, He had the authority to change things a bit.  He explained that they had got it wrong all this time and that God really wanted their hearts, not just their behavior.  Adultery was not just a matter of the physical act, for example, but was also about the eyes and the heart.  Murder was not just the actual taking of another life, but it was also having hate in your heart.  And so on.

Who could do this?  Only God.  This is why they were so amazed.  They realized that they were in the presence of the Divine.  This shocked them, but that was what they needed to hear.

How about you?  If you know Jesus are you amazed at your relationship with the Divine?  Do you submit to His Word with the understanding that it has true authority?  Personally, as I read this passage I am stirred to prayerfully pursue more depth with the Lord.  He is God and He loves me.  I have a relationship with Him through Christ's life, death, burial, and resurrection.  How could I have any reaction but to ἐξεπλήσσοντο?

Sure of What We Know

John 7:47 The Pharisees answered them, "Have you also been deceived? 48 Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? 49 But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed."

47 ἀπεκρίθησαν οὖν αὐτοῖς οἱ Φαρισαῖοι· μὴ καὶ ὑμεῖς πεπλάνησθε; 48  μή τις ἐκ τῶν ἀρχόντων ἐπίστευσεν εἰς αὐτὸν ἢ ἐκ τῶν Φαρισαίων; 49  ἀλλὰ ὁ ὄχλος οὗτος ὁ μὴ γινώσκων τὸν νόμον ἐπάρατοί εἰσιν.

There were folks in charge who started to believe in Jesus.  At least they were giving Him the benefit of the doubt considering what He taught.  Yet the Pharisees were resolute.  They refused to believe no matter what.  Their authority was in themselves and their knowledge of the Law.  It was clear to them that there was no way for the crowd to have an insight that they did not have.

I have one year to go before I finish seminary.  As I finish this year I see the need to guard against having the mindset of the Pharisees.  If I become a pastor I will have a much better theological education than most of the folks in my congregation.  It is easy to get into the mentality that they are mere sheep and I am a shepherd with a form of magisterial authority.  That is true to a degree, but it walks dangerously close to a line that is normally reserved for Roman Catholics.

While I think that ordination is a fine thing, I also have a problem with the title.  "Reverend" is short for "revered one."  If there is one thing that I want to communicate through this post it is that I am just a guy like anyone else.  I am a sinner who desperately needs God's grace.  The only thing separating me from some others is that I have a better education in languages, history, and theology.  That does not give me magisterial authority.  It is possible that they would understand something that I do not.  The last thing I want is to be like the proud Pharisees who were sure of their own righteousness and the crowd's sinfulness.

Authority

Jeremiah 18:12-18
(12) "But they say, 'That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.'
(13) "Therefore thus says the LORD: Ask among the nations, Who has heard the like of this? The virgin Israel has done a very horrible thing.
(14) Does the snow of Lebanon leave the crags of Sirion? Do the mountain waters run dry, the cold flowing streams?
(15) But my people have forgotten me; they make offerings to false gods; they made them stumble in their ways, in the ancient roads, and to walk into side roads, not the highway,
(16) making their land a horror, a thing to be hissed at forever. Everyone who passes by it is horrified and shakes his head.
(17) Like the east wind I will scatter them before the enemy. I will show them my back, not my face, in the day of their calamity."
(18) Then they said, "Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not pay attention to any of his words."

I apologize for the long quotation today, but I think the whole thing is necessary to make a point on something I am really wrestling with lately. The people don't like what Jeremiah has to say regarding their sin, so they decide that they are going to follow their own hearts. God promises that there will be consequences to this decision and Jeremiah reports that. What do the people do? They decide to "make plots against Jeremiah" because they prefer to listen to those who tell them what they want to hear.

Of course, most of us who preach or aspire to preach think of ourselves as Jeremiah. I know that I rarely have the humility to think of myself as one who needs to hear his teaching. This is especially true in the Baptist and non-denominational circles in which I run. We all think that we're "doing church" correctly and we don't have much room for naysayers.

Check out this blog post about something Mark Dever said. The church with which my seminary is affiliated has an eschatological position in its membership statement. However, they also have a really good relationship with Capitol Hill Baptist to the point that Mark Dever has spoken at our church. I wonder what reaction there will be to this calling out, if any?

I am doing a paper on papal infallibility and it is forcing me to wrestle with issues like this. Frankly, Stephen Davey is under no obligation to listen to Mark Dever. Should he? I think so, but that's up to him and I respect him as an elder as well as the president of my seminary. However, the freedom that he has to come to his own opinion is the same as the freedom I have to accept or reject his thoughts on this matter, or at least that's how I see it.

If I were Lutheran, Missouri Synod this would not be an issue. I would respect the teachings of the LCMS. The same goes for PCA and of course Roman Catholic. Of course, there are other problems that come with that kind of ecclesiastical structure too. I'm not saying that it's perfect, but it is something that I'm being drawn to more and more.

I wish I could be Roman Catholic, but I just can't buy into the way they treat Scripture and I would echo Luther's sentiments from Worms. I just wonder how this will eventually play out.