The question of authority concerned, of course, not the formal legal side, but the spiritual one. The people listening to Jesus, deeply religious people, ask it because they want to know where He gets the power by which He performs His miracles and healings...
The question of authority concerned, of course, not the formal legal side, but the spiritual one. The people listening to Jesus, deeply religious people, ask it because they want to know where He gets the power by which He performs His miracles and healings. Jesus asks them a counterquestion that would seem unrelated to the topic: a question about the washings ("baptisms") that John performed. In reality, however, there is a connection, and it concerns the meaning of the question asked of Jesus, above all its spiritual meaning. Those listening to Jesus, representatives of religious authority and teachers of the Torah, called here "scribes," want to know from whom Jesus received the authorization that allows Him to do what He does.
It might seem strange to speak of authorization in the work of God, but religious consciousness always remains true to itself, and for a religious person even the action of God's power is genuine only when it fits within the framework of certain religious criteria. God can act only "correctly," and if there is a manifestation of power acting "incorrectly," then that power cannot be God's. The question asked of Jesus was precisely a question about criteria; they wanted Him to justify the "correctness" of the power by which He healed and worked miracles.
In such a context the counterquestion about John's washings was entirely appropriate. The point is not only that the power there and here was one and that its Source was one. The point is also the ability to see and recognize. The one who could not or would not see the spiritual authenticity and purity of what John was doing would not see the spiritual authenticity and purity of what the Savior was doing. Meanwhile, those listening to Jesus did not want to see the obvious. They were more concerned with what people would think of them than with the truth. In such a spiritual state one will not see what is real, and this is what Jesus points out to the priests and teachers of the Torah who are listening to Him.
1
1:20 But ye, beloved, not separating, but building yourselves up in your most holy faith - Than which none can be more holy in itself, or more conducive to the most refined and exalted holiness. Praying through the Holy Spirit - Who alone is able to build you up, as he alone laid the foundation. In this and the following verse St. Jude mentions the Father, Son, and Spirit, together with faith, love, and hope.
1:21 By these means, through his grace, keep yourselves in the love of God, and in the confident expectation of that eternal life which is purchased for you, and conferred upon you, through the mere mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1:22 Meantime watch over others, as well as yourselves, and give them such help as their various needs require. For instance,
- Some, that are wavering in judgment, staggered by others'or by their own evil reasoning, endeavour more deeply to convince of the whole truth as it is in Jesus.
- Some snatch, with a swift and strong hand, out of the fireof sin and temptation.
- On others show compassion in a milder and gentler way;though still with a jealous fear, lest yourselves be infected with the disease you endeavour to cure.
See, therefore, that while you love the sinners, ye retain the utmost abhorrence of their sins, and of any the least degree of, or approach to, them.1:24 Now to him who alone is able to keep them from falling - Into any of these errors or sins. And to present them faultless in the presence of his glory - That is, in his own presence, when he shall be revealed in all his glory.