Purpose And Power Of Authority (11 page)

This incident is loaded with meaning.

Do you know how far the site of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River is from the region of Galilee? It is approximately seventy or eighty miles. That would be more than a week’s walk over a terrain of rocks and hills. Jesus didn’t come for a casual visit. He came looking for John.

We have seen that many people’s experiences with authority have been negative, and that they are therefore wary of it. Yet submitting to true authority is something desirable and essential for our lives, and one of the ways we know this is that Jesus went looking for what we tend to avoid. He sought out what we run from. He requested what we are suspicious of. He confidently sought John the Baptist to allow Him to submit to his authority.

“But John tried to deter him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper [“fitting” nkjv] for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness’” (Matthew 3:14–15). “All righteousness” means “all right standing, or positioning.” Jesus was saying that this was necessary for Him to be in proper relationship to the Ultimate Authority, God the Father.

Authority Needs Authority to Release Its Power

John had previously distinguished his authority from the authority of Jesus. Before Jesus came to be baptized by him, John had told the people, “After me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry” (Matthew 3:11, emphasis added). John knew well the powerful authority of Jesus. He had also said, “I baptize you with water for repentance.…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (verse 11).

What kind of baptism did Jesus come for? Water baptism. And it was John who was authorized to baptize with water. Jesus couldn’t baptize Himself because He was not the water-baptizer. As great as He was, He had to submit to the authority that had been established by God the Father for this time in His life on earth.

The Old Testament prophecy in Malachi 3:1 reveals what authority Jesus was submitting to when He was baptized by John:

“See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty. But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire.(Malachi 3:1)

Two “messengers” are mentioned in this passage. The first messenger would prepare the way for the Lord, and this refers to John the Baptist. The second messenger is the messenger of the covenant, and this refers to Jesus.

John’s authority was in his assignment—to prepare the way for the Lord. He declared, “The reason I came baptizing with water was that he [the greater Messenger] might be revealed to Israel” (John 1:31).

The account in the book of Matthew says that when Jesus answered John in terms of authority—“Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness”—“then John consented” (Matthew 3:15).

The secret to life is to constantly submit to God and His authority, even though you don’t always understand what He is doing. John told Jesus, in effect, “I cannot baptize You. You should baptize me.” He didn’t fully understand his authority at first, which is the case with many people today. Your authority is found in what God has prepared for you to do. If anyone needs what God has gifted you to provide for them, then there are no substitutes; they have to come to you. Some people might not like that fact, but God has sent them to you. We may sometimes feel uncomfortable with our own authority, as John was, but we need to obey God in it to fulfill the purposes only He fully knows.

Since John was operating under the authority of God, he understood when Jesus appealed to authority, and he then agreed to baptize Him.

The result of Jesus’ submission to the established authority is striking:

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)

A voice from heaven spoke. When? “As soon as” Jesus submitted to authority. “As soon as” means immediately.

We should consider whether our ability to hear from God regarding His purposes for our lives is directly related to our response to His authority. If you are not receiving guidance from God, perhaps it is because you keep violating some authority He has established in your life.

What pleased God the Father so much that He spoke audibly? He witnessed Jesus, God the Son, submitting to a human in obedience! He confirmed that this obedience was pleasing. Of course, Jesus didn’t submit to a human being alone but to the authority from God that had been given to that human being. We see Jesus’ submission to other earthly authorities in various instances in His life, as well, as He was led by God the Father, for the sake of order, peace, and purpose. A few examples are:

• Submission to His parents’ authority. (See Luke 2:40–52.)
  

• Submission to the requirement of the temple tax and to taxation by the Roman emperor Caesar. (See
  Matthew 17:24–27.)
  

• Submission to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. (See John 19:10–11.)
  

Submission to Authority Leads to True Greatness

The vital thing to understand is that Jesus could not begin or accomplish His work until John “released” Him. The fact that many of us haven’t understood or had good experiences with authority, prompting our avoidance of it, may be causing us to miss out on the full release of our own authority. We may not have had the opportunity to exercise our authority to its full potential because it is authority that releases our authority. We submit first to the authority of our Creator and then to the authority He has given other human beings in various realms and aspects of life. In a later chapter, I describe how you can respond to “authority” that is not in line with God’s purposes and still receive His blessing and benefit from it.

There is ample evidence that no one understood authority more than the Authority of Life Himself, who established authority on the earth. Jesus had the power to change the world, but that power depended first on His submission to John. John held the authority in his hand to release Jesus. If Jesus Himself needed to submit to God the Father and to John as an earthly authority, why do we often think we don’t need to submit to anyone?

No one had a greater impact on the world than Jesus, yet He didn’t seek a “ministry” or followers for Himself independently. He knew and lived in the authority He had been given and which had been confirmed in various ways at His birth. (See, for example, Luke 2:25–32.) At age twelve, He was discussing deep questions about God and the Scriptures with the teachers in the temple. (See Luke 2:42–47.) When He felt God prompting Him to be baptized by John, He left the region where He had grown up and went to the Jordan River. He didn’t come to check John out. He didn’t come to see if John was the kind of preacher He liked. He didn’t come to see if John had the kind of ministry He would want to “hook up” with. Jesus, God the Son, the Creator of the world, came looking for an authority He knew He was to submit to.

Likewise, no matter how “great” you were born to be, someone has to release you.

Moreover, greatness does not come from gifts and talents alone. It comes from being where you’re supposed to be in terms of personal authority and operating in your unique domain. John had said, “After me will come one who is more powerful than I” (Matthew 3:11). Jesus came along, the One whom John had said was more powerful, and Jesus said to him, in effect, “I need to submit to you now as the authority in this situation. In this circumstance, you are ‘greater’ in that you are to administer the authority that God has given you to administer.”

Acting on your authority from God brings you greatness. Yet the authority that brings greatness is often not what we think it is. It means serving others. At a later time, Jesus told His disciples,

Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.(Matthew 20:26–28)

Becoming and doing what you are meant to be and do makes you great. It doesn’t matter what other people may say about you, there’s something they have to come to you for because you have been given that authority. Remember that authority is independent of titles. Some people have titles, but they don’t have any real authority. Authority goes beyond titles; it is what God has placed inside you. When Jesus told John, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15), He was saying, in effect, “John, let’s not get into titles. Let’s just follow
proper authority.”

Submission to Authority Brings Spiritual Power and Protection

What would have happened if Jesus had not been willing to submit to John’s authority in baptism, if John had refused to baptize Jesus because Jesus was greater than he, or if Jesus had baptized John in water instead? The heavens would not have opened, the Holy Spirit would not have come down in the form of a dove, God’s voice would not have confirmed who Jesus was before the people, and Jesus wouldn’t have been able to begin His ministry.

Right after God spoke from heaven, the Scripture says, “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1). After Jesus’ authority was confirmed by God, He was immediately tempted by the devil to forsake that authority and to take up a false authority. Don’t be surprised if you, too, are tempted to give up legitimate authority to take what seems the easy way out in living your life.

Note how the devil’s temptations were directly related to authority:

• The temptation to turn stones into bread can be seen as an attack on God as the Source and Sustainer of life. Jesus’ response was, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).
  

• The temptation to recklessly throw Himself from the pinnacle of the temple and have God save Him can be seen as an enticement to go beyond the parameters of authority that God had given. Jesus’ response was, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’” (verse 7).
  

• The temptation to bow down and worship the devil in exchange for “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor” (verse 8) can be seen as a ploy to cause Jesus to reject the established and righteous authority of the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God, in favor of the counterfeit, transitory, and decayed authority of earth. This was an especially powerful temptation because the message Jesus came to bring was that the kingdom of heaven had come to earth—through Him. (See, for example, verse 17.) Jesus’ response was, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only’” (verse 10).
  

In response to each of these temptations, Jesus cited the Word of God, the “Manual” for how human beings are to live. That Manual is the authoritative Word of the Creator.

If Jesus had refused to be baptized by John before going into the desert to be tempted, then He wouldn’t have been able to overcome these temptations as He did. Satan would have won. Why? Jesus would have been operating in a manner that was out of order in relation to authority. He would have been acting in disobedience, or in violation of God’s ways and purposes. He would have broken His relationship with God the Father, forsaken His Word, and damaged the credibility of God. Spiritual strength and the ability to withstand the devil come from obedience to God’s ways and from remaining in His established authority.

How many people go out to “fight against the devil” but haven’t done what they were supposed to do before they left? Without proper authority from heaven, they will fail. One time, seven sons of a man named Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were trying to drive out demons in the name of Jesus, but because they lacked the authority of being in right standing and relationship with God, they utterly failed:

One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. (Acts 19:15–16)

Having the right words isn’t enough. You need the authority behind them.

Finally, if Jesus hadn’t been baptized by John, it would have interfered with history, and we would today be “without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). It would have prevented the restoration of humanity to a relationship with God and to a recovery of its authority.

There is a passage in Philippians 2 that is startling in its revelation of both Jesus’ own authority and His humbleness in submitting to authority:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped [held on to, maintained], but made himself nothing [“of no reputation” kjv], taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!(Philippians 2:5–8)

“He humbled himself” is a key phrase. Having all authority as God, Jesus humbled Himself!

Authority doesn’t work if someone has to humble you. True authority does not humble people but waits for people to humble themselves. Jesus did exactly what we are expected to do. He humbled Himself. “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10).

The passage from Philippians continues,

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9–11)