When I began practicing law, the word Authority took on new meaning. I remember stepping out of a mediation to call the boss. I passed along a settlement offer from opposing counsel and his answer was, “I can’t agree to that. I don’t have authority.”
What he meant was that his defendant-client had not given him permission to spend that much. Young lawyers catch on quickly: it all comes down to authority. Your client may agree to pay up to $50,000 (for example) to settle the case, (giving you $50,000 in authority). If you can’t convince the attorney for the other side that his client should accept $50,000, you will not be able to settle until you get more authority.
Lawyers never forget: some decisions belong not to you, but the client.
Questions of authority come up every day.
When a parent tries to control decisions of married children, they may be crossing a line of authority. Businesses face many questions of authority: owners, investors, and limited partners may possess some limited authority, general partners possess authority in many areas, etc.
Hospitals are a good example.
Only doctors can prescribe drugs.
Nurses have no authority to change drug or dosage, though they do have authority to raise questions when they believe a doctor has made a mistake.
Treatment decisions are always left to the authority of the treating physician.
You might be the owner of a hospital, but you have no authority over the treatment of an individual patient.
A particularly difficult question of authority comes up when a married person with living parents becomes incapacitated. If a college student were to get married to a man she just met in Las Vegas and suffer a brain injury while on her honeymoon, her two parents that have invested twenty years into her life would NOT have the authority to consent to medical treatment on her behalf if her husband were against the treatment. Even though the parents have never met their son-in-law, and even though he has only known their daughter for two weeks, the law gives the husband the legal authority to consent to medical treatment—not the parents. That is what is meant by authority.
Jesus crossed a line with the Pharisees. He saw a paralyzed man and instead of healing him, said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven” Luke 5:20.
Jesus exercised AUTHORITY—and it was an authority that belongs only to God. The Pharisees were outraged, thinking ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’
“But perceiving their thoughts, Jesus replied, ‘Why are you thinking this way? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—Jesus spoke to the paralyzed man—“Arise, take up your pallet, and go home” Luke 5:22-24.
Jesus had AUTHORITY. And He exercised it publicly, knowing it would upset the Pharisees. But what does it mean?
The Pharisees were correct: only God can forgive sins.
When Jesus claimed to possess “the authority to forgive sins,” Jesus was, in effect, saying “I and the Father are One” as He would say later in John 10:30. Jesus possessed not only the power of God and the words of God—He possessed the AUTHORITY of God.
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Household Words: 