The Authority Of God’s Word Is The Reason For The Hope That Is In Me
The Authority Of God’s Word Is My Mainstay, My Unshakable Foundation.
If I disbelieve God’s Word, what do I have? I do not have faith. If I do not have faith, I have nothing. Without faith, all hope is lost. But for me, that is not the case. I do have faith. I believe God’s word, and because of that I have a hope inside me no matter what I face.
1 Peter 3:15 tells believers in Jesus to always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.
If you ask me why I have this hope in me and base my life on the authority of God’s word, my first response would most probably be experiential. I have experienced the power of God’s word in my life in such a way that I can’t dismiss it, overlook it, or even, squelch it.
However, in the world we live in, I want my reason to be more authoritative than my own experience. So today I want to go beyond my experience and base my reason on the authority of God’s Word.
Authority
Jesus taught many truths in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. I want to focus on the response of the people who heard Him and what they understood about His teaching.
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.
Matthew 7:28-29
Let’s define authority as used in Matthew 7:29 according to the original Greek language. In The Complete Word Study Dictionary of the New Testament, authority (exousia in Greek) means “permission, authority, right, liberty, (and/or) power to do something.”
The Greek term exousia comes from a root word, exesti which means, it is lawful and denies the presence of any hindrance. I absolutely loved what The Complete Word Study Dictionary stated about these two Greek terms.
“The words exesti and exousia combine the two ideas of right and might.”
So as we go through these next few verses, let’s hold onto the understanding that the biblical term authority we will be looking at today encompasses both the right and might. As we will see, Jesus has the full and complete right of full and complete authority and His authority has full and complete might or power.
For you and I, as believer’s in Christ, our faith has an authority. God’s word is our authority and our standard on which to build our lives. John’s gospel tells us about The True Identity and Divinity of Jesus beginning in John 1:1 with:
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
John 1:1
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
Not that you need me to point this out, but let’s clarify by stating the obvious. Jesus was the Word made flesh.
Authority In All Four Gospels
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all wrote about and testified of their own eye witness or the witness of others about Jesus’ authority and the authority of His teachings and His words.
Matthew 13:54 and Mark 1:22 says that those in the synagogues were astonished with His teaching. Matthew 19:25 and Mark 10:24 and 26 says His disciples were astonished at His teaching. Matthew 22:33, Mark 11:8, and Luke 2:47; 4:32 and 36 tell us that the multitudes and all the people were astonished at His teaching. That’s a lot of people recorded as witnessing the authority of Jesus’ words.
John’s Gospel – The Divinity and Authority
John recorded, the times Jesus Himself spoke of the authority of His words and that the source of that authority was God the Father.
For I have not spoken on my own authority; but the Father who sent Me
gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.
John 12:49
Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?
The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority;
but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.
John 14:10
John also noted Jesus’ prayer to His heavenly father in John 17:2
As You have given Him authority over all flesh,
that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.
John 17:2
John wrote of Jesus’ divinity and showed us that the source of Jesus’ authority was the invisible God, God the Father. In other words, Jesus spoke with authority because His authority was from the true source, the one and only source of all authority. That is why Jesus declared,
"All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
Matthew 28:18
Jesus’ Authority in This World
Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father,
when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.
1 Corinthians 15:24
The authority of this world comes to an end because the authority of this world is ultimately under the authority and power of God.
Let’s talk about one more instance of Jesus’ authority in the gospels. The story is found in Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10. Here we see one of the rare times that someone’s faith astonished Jesus. A Roman centurion came to Jesus on behalf of his sick servant in need of healing, and he fully believed in the authority of Jesus’ word. The centurion explained his own understanding from his own position of authority saying,
For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me.
And I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes;
and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."
Matthew 8:9
Matthew 8:10 tells us that Jesus marveled over the centurion’s faith. In Matthew 8:13 the centurion experienced the result of his understanding and faith, when on Jesus’ word alone, the servant who was not present was healed.
That dear sister is power and authority displayed. God’s word is the reason for the hope that is in me because I, like the centurion, experienced the power of it. I also know who I believe and I believe He has all right and all might to His authority.
