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- [D. A. Carson] One of the striking features of all four Gospels is how much
emphasis is put on Jesus' words. Elsewhere, Jesus can say,
"Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away."
If any mere human being said that, he would have to be dismissed
as a megalomaniac, an absolute idiot. But Jesus expects us to take this
with utmost seriousness. His words will never pass away.
Now, in the passage before us, there are several ways in which
the authority, the finality of Jesus' words is made abundantly clear.
For example, in the little account of the wise and the foolish builders,
one building on sand and the other building on rock, Jesus says the decisive
difference between the two is this, the one who is building on rock hears
Jesus' words and puts them into practice. They're that important.
To do that is to build a stable foundation. The obverse of that is hearing
Jesus' words and not putting them into practice or not hearing the words at all.
It is devastating to escape from the authority of Jesus' words,
and what it means is your own destruction. But perhaps the most remarkable account
in these verses that displays Jesus' authority is in the healing of the
centurion's servant. The centurion eventually says,
"Jesus, you don't need to come to my place." I'll explain why. He says,
"I'm a man under authority. I say to this soldier, 'Go,' and he goes,
and to this soldier, 'Come,' and he comes. So you too merely have to say the word and
the miracle will be done." Now, do you see what the centurion is saying?
The centurion understands that when he gives an order, he's a centurion over 100
men and he speaks to one of these men and they will obey the order because that foot
soldier does not see the centurion as just one man telling him what to do.
Behind the centurion is a tribune, behind the tribune are further senior
officers all the way back to Caesar. Behind the centurion's command is Rome,
the imperial power of a mighty army. So of course, the foot soldier obeys.
But if the centurion uses that as an analogy for Jesus, what he's really saying
is something like this, "I perceive," he says,
"that when you speak, God speaks. Whatever you say, God is saying.
It's not just some ordinary human being that says, 'Be healed,' where the healing
may take place or it may not. But when you speak, behind your lips are
God's lips. What you say, God says, in exactly the same way that when
I give a legitimate order to my soldier, when I speak, Rome speaks. When you speak,
God speaks." And that's why Jesus says, "I have not found such great faith in all
of Israel." Because even those coming to grips with who Jesus is,
beginning to perceive he is, he must be the promised Messiah,
they have not come to grips with such a powerful identification with Jesus and
with his Father, between Jesus' words and God's words. That's why Jesus can
say elsewhere, "Heaven on Earth can pass away, but my words will never pass away."
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