Year 6, Day 201: Matthew 27

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Authority

• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.

There are many reasons why Jesus died.  From the perspective of the Father, He died so that we can have true relationship with Him again.  From Jesus’ perspective, He died because it was the Father’s will for Him to die.  From the perspective of His disciples, He died because they were sinful and they needed His blood to redeem them.  But Jesus didn’t only die for good reasons.

From the perspective of the religious elite, Jesus died because of the concept of authority.  Jesus’ authority came from the Father.  That’s why he taught the way He did.  That’s why He made disciples the way that He did.  That’s why He debated the way that He did.  That’s why He performed miracles the way that He did.

The problem is that the religious authorities didn’t get their authority from the Father.  If they did, they would have accepted Jesus.  But they were getting their authority from themselves and the culture around them.  This caused them to clash.  That’s why Jesus died from their perspective.

How do we see this in Matthew 27?  Who is it that comes up with the plan to kill Jesus?  The religious elite, that’s who.  Who is it that convinces the people in charge to kill Jesus?  The crowd that was stirred up against Him.  Who is it that takes Jesus’ life?  The Roman soldiers who are paid by the government.  Nowhere in this story do any of these people turn to the Father and check to make sure that their decision was in line with the Father.  They are getting their authority form the other people around them.  That’s a dangerous thing to do.  When that happens, we usually find ourselves acting contrary to the will of the Father.

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