The Saviour had begun to call disciples to follow Him: four fishermen working at the Lake of Galilee. They went into the village of Capernaum and, on the Sabbath, “He entered into the synagogue, and taught” (Mk 1:21). We are not here told what He said, but we are told about its effect on those who heard Him: “They were astonished at His doctrine: for He taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes”. “He taught them,” so J A Alexander explains this statement, “not as a mere expounder, but with the original authority belonging to the author of the law [which He] expounded. This is not a description of mere outward manner, but of that self-evidencing light and self-asserting force which must accompany all direct divine communications to the minds of creatures. . . . He was speaking with authority, declaring His own will, and expounding His own law, not that of another.”1
Let us note the authority that the people felt as Jesus taught them. Whether that teaching, and the authority with which it was given, had a saving effect on them is another matter. Some may have so felt that authority in their souls that they did repent and believe the gospel, a duty which was at the centre of Christ’s earliest preaching (see Mk 1:15). Others certainly did not; indeed it would seem that the vast majority did not believe; “He came unto His own [the seed of Abraham], and His own received Him not” (Jn 1:11). Many of them recognised His authority when He spoke to them, but they did not submit to what He told them with such authority. After they had seen the feeding of the 5000, many said, “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world” (Jn 6:14); they recognised Jesus as the Prophet whom Moses (in Deut 18:18) foretold would come into the world. Yet they did not generally receive Him by faith.
So it is today. There are still people who accept that Jesus has authority, and yet, when He calls them to repent and believe the gospel, they do not turn from their sins and they refuse to trust in Him for the salvation of their souls. They may imagine that if Jesus was to appear in their place of worship and teach the people as He did in Capernaum, they would most certainly repent and believe. But now He is the exalted Saviour on the throne of glory; His authority now is most certainly not less than it was while in His state of humiliation in this world. We will not hear His voice sounding from the skies, but He sends ambassadors to us, and ambassadors speak with the authority of the head of the state that sent them. Christ’s ambassadors, the preachers of the gospel, speak with Christ’s authority when they speak as their King has authorised them – that is, when they preach in a way that is consistent with the revelation that God has given in Scripture.
It should encourage us to expect the exalted Saviour to exercise His authority when people assemble to worship, and His ambassadors speak on His behalf, that He promised, “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20). When even a few people gather at His command, should we not expect that Christ Himself will be present and will, in one degree or another, make His authority felt in connection with the Word read and preached? And should it not encourage us to pray for a blessing, however few may attend a service?
Christ taught in the synagogue in Capernaum; He taught in the synagogue in Nazareth; He taught at the temple in Jerusalem; He taught at the well of Sychar, where He had just one woman to listen to Him. In each case He taught with authority; and on many such occasions, there no doubt were some who received His words when there was divine power – the power of the Holy Spirit – accompanying what He said. This was certainly so at Sychar, for the woman confessed that He “told me all things that ever I did” and asked the believing question, “Is not this the Christ?” (Jn 4:29). What power accompanied the words in which the Saviour revealed Himself to her: “I that speak unto thee am He” (Jn 4:26)! He was telling her: I am the Messiah. And the power was that of the Holy Spirit, through whom God’s purposes for the salvation of sinners will always be accomplished.
In his old age, the London minister, Rowland Hill (1744–1833), recalled a time when he had preached outside and a man came to him afterwards to confess, “I wanted to stone you as much as ever Saul wanted to stone Stephen, and I came with my pockets full of stones for that purpose. I stood to hear you, and my heart was touched; I put my hand in one pocket and cast away a stone out of that, and then I put my hand into the other, and did the same, till I had dropped them all, for I trust the Lord was taking the stone out of my heart.”2 We can assume that there was authority in the way Hill preached on that occasion, but especially what the man felt in his heart was the authority of Christ, working through the Holy Spirit.
1Alexander, A Commentary on Mark, Banner of Truth reprint, 1984.
2Edwin Sidney, Mature Reflections and Devotions of the Rev Rowland Hill in His Old Age, London, 1836, p 213. (Scripture does not, of course, state what Saul wanted to do.)
On the occasion when Christ’s authority was recognised in the Capernaum synagogue, He exercised His power on a man there who was under the influence of an unclean spirit. The devil cried out and, although recognising that Jesus was “the Holy One of God”, there was a display of the evil spirit’s enmity. Jesus told him to be quiet and to come out of the man. With one final display of his evil power, tearing the man and crying with a loud voice, the devil obeyed. Clearly, if He had wished, the Saviour could have prevented the spirit acting as he did, but Jesus permitted this to happen – obviously for His own wise purposes. It showed that Jesus’ authority was sufficient to make the evil spirit obey His command. We can be sure that it did not obey willingly, that it would have resisted if it could have done so. But there is no power, even from hell, that can resist the power of the Lord Jesus. And once more the people recognised His authority. They asked, “What thing is this? . . . for with authority commandeth He even the unclean spirits, and they do obey Him” (Mk 1:27).
Similarly, however strong Satan may be, and however determined to keep a sinner in his kingdom, he must let the sinner go whenever the Saviour exercises His authority in giving the Holy Spirit to call that sinner effectually. The sinner cannot resist that call once he is made willing to come to Christ, and Satan is no more able to resist, however unwilling he is to release his hold on someone who has remained, for his entire lifetime, in the kingdom of the evil one. Yes, the call of the gospel may be resisted, and very often is. But what cannot be resisted is the authority of Christ when He sends the Holy Spirit to work powerfully and effectively in the heart of a sinner.
We are not to think that Christ has somehow lost His authority when Satan retains so many of the world’s population in his kingdom and so few begin to follow Christ. Here again we may note that the Lord is following out His own purposes and we should recall that, when the last will come to the last, those who have felt Christ’s authority and have begun to follow Him will be, not a few, but “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues” (Rev 7:9).
The conversion of a sinner who is obviously doing the will of the evil one, going on in a course of outward sin, will normally cause amazement. But every conversion should bring God’s children to glorify God for such a display of His grace and power. Let them also pray, earnestly, that Christ would come to make His authority felt whenever the Word of God is proclaimed and that, even in our time, He would exercise that authority on vast numbers of sinners so that they would turn from sin and live to His glory for the rest of their lives. And let sinners pray, Make me feel in my own soul the authority of Christ and make me willing to trust in Him.