At various points in the gospels, we are told that Jesus taught ‘with authority’. For example, Matthew says ‘When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.’ (Matt 7:28-29). Mark insists, ‘The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.’ (Mark 1:22). Luke says, ‘They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.’ (Luke 4:32). The question is, what does this mean?

Luke (of the examples above) leaves us with the slightly vaguer ‘because his words had authority’. Both Matthew and Mark supply a little more with ‘not as the teachers of the law’. But all three can be harmonized in broadly the same way.

Clearly, Matthew and Mark recognise that the scribes spoke with some sort of authority. The very fact that they were scribes, recognised by the people as part of the religious authority, is significant. What the gospel writers seem to be drawing our attention to is not that scribes had no authority, but that Jesus spoke with a different kind of authority to them. His authority was not like the teachers of the law.

This is perhaps where Luke’s description becomes helpful. Luke reckons Jesus’ teaching carried a particular quality ‘because his words had authority’. The scribes were not arguing that their very words had authority in and of themselves. Rather, the scribes would cite other scholars and the rabbinic traditions. They had the kind of authority that a university professor holds. They have read the traditions, they understand the various arguments that have previously been advanced, they have then weighed the evidence and learned views, they have marshalled all the arguments and so speak authoritatively in reference to them.

But it is Jesus’ very words, by contrast, that Luke says hold authority. Jesus does not cite the rabbinic tradition, he does not supply anybody else’s argument, he does not bring together all the evidence of other people’s arguments. Jesus’ teaching tended to be along the lines of, ‘you have heard it said… but I say to you…’ Jesus effectively dismissed all the prior arguments and spoke as though his own words carried authority. He didn’t rely on the traditions, he spoke as though God himself was speaking. Indeed, he often rode roughshod over the traditions (at least as they were being practiced by the Pharisees) as one who had God’s authority to utterly upend them.

This is what is meant both by the claims that Jesus’ words had authority in themselves and he taught them as one with authority, not like the teachers of the law. Jesus spoke with the authority of God, not merely the academic authority of a learned rabbi. As RC Sproul helpfully puts it in his commentary on Mark, ‘Jesus spoke exousia, out of substance. His teaching was supremely substantive; there was nothing superficial or light about it. This was the utterance of the One who was of the same essence as the Father, so Jesus’ authority was rooted and grounded in God Himself. That is what terrified the people. They said, “never have we heard anyone speak like this”.

When you listen to a theologian, you are listening to one who has authority. But they hold a similar kind of authority to the scribes of Jesus’ day. They have read the books, heard the arguments, weigh what has been said and draw conclusions about what the Bible probably meant. And such as they have the relevant qualifications and experience, speaking what seems to be in line with scripture, we weigh their opinion accordingly.

But Jesus needed no such qualification. He was frequently dismissed as a mere carpenters son, from a despised town in a nothing region. But when we hear the words of Jesus, we are not simply listening to a learned rabbi or sound theologian. We are hearing the Word of God speak. We are hearing one who is of the same essence as the Father, who is himself fully God, speaking with the full authority of God. He doesn’t need to weigh the arguments and reference the tradition; his ‘but I say to you’ is enough – it is the very word of God.