1. Authority that feels different
Again and again, the Gospels make the same quiet but striking observation about Jesus:
“The people were amazed, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as the teachers of the law.” (Matthew 7:29)
This line is so familiar that it is easy to miss how unsettling it is. Jesus holds no recognised position within the religious system of his day. He has not trained under an accredited rabbi, does not appeal to an established interpretive school, and does not shore up his teaching by citing precedent. And yet his authority is immediately recognised—not enforced, not announced, but felt.
The contrast the Gospel writers draw is not between weak and strong authority, but between two entirely different kinds. The scribes speak from within a system that depends on legitimacy, regulation, and continuity. Their authority is secured by role, training, precedent, and approval.
We still recognise this kind of authority today. It appears whenever leaders speak primarily from within the institution—when decisions are justified by process rather than truthfulness, when appeals to unity mask an anxiety about dissent, and when faithfulness is quietly equated with compliance. Such authority may be sincere and well-intentioned, but it is carefully protected, easily threatened and therefore inherently vulnerable.
Jesus speaks from within himself—congruent, undivided, unprotected.
This is not mere charisma—the force of personality that can move a crowd without necessarily telling the truth. But neither is it institutional authority, derived from position or role. It is something rarer and more demanding: authority that arises from integrity, coherence, and costly faithfulness.
At times, the Church has recognised this kind of authority in particular preachers and teachers—those whose words carried weight not because they demanded allegiance, but because they spoke truthfully, even when doing so made them controversial. Such authority does not guarantee correctness, nor does it place anyone beyond challenge. But it is recognised rather than imposed, and it can survive disagreement without resorting to control.
Jesus’ authority does not rest on infallibility, nor does it grant infallibility to those who reflect it. Authority in the image of God is not proved by being beyond error, but by remaining truthful, accountable, and open to correction.
2. Authority without credentials—and without defence
What is most striking about Jesus’ authority is not only where it comes from, but what he refuses to do to maintain it.
He does not defend himself when challenged.
He does not panic when misunderstood.
He allows people to disagree, resist, and walk away.
When religious leaders demand, “By what authority are you doing these things?” (Matthew 21:23), Jesus does not respond by clarifying his status. Instead, he exposes the anxiety beneath the question. Their concern is not whether he speaks truthfully, but whether his influence can be controlled.
Jesus’ authority does not depend on winning arguments, retaining followers, or being seen to prevail. It survives rejection precisely because it does not require compliance in order to exist.
Authority that must be protected by threat has already betrayed its fragility.
What really interests me here is that Jesus appears completely at ease in himself—but not because he is asserting a doctrine about who he is. His authority does not rest on appeal to authorisation—not even God’s authorisation—or his credentials, or external validation. It arises from standing truthfully in what he sees, says, and lives. He speaks from solid ground not because he is insulated from challenge, but because he is not divided against himself, nor driven by fear of how he will be received.
For many of us, that kind of groundedness takes time. We have learned to distrust our own perception because stronger, more confident voices have spoken over us. To grow into truthful speech is not arrogance; it is maturity. To follow Jesus faithfully is not to claim his certainty, but to practise his integrity—to stand honestly in what we have genuinely come to know, without needing either to dominate others or to disappear ourselves.
Such authority does not need to be enforced—and for that reason, it often troubles institutions that depend on control.
3. Authority that speaks truth rather than enforcing certainty
Religious authority often seeks certainty—not because truth demands it, but because control does.
Jesus, by contrast, speaks truthfully without rushing people into conclusions. He teaches in parables. He asks questions more often than he supplies answers. He tolerates ambiguity, slow understanding, and partial sight.
This is not evasiveness. It is confidence of a deeper kind.
Certainty needs protection.
Truthfulness can remain exposed.
Jesus does not claim authority by closing down interpretation, but by opening it up—trusting that truth, when spoken without fear, has a life of its own.
4. “Follow me”: authority as invitation
Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus’ most characteristic exercise of authority is also the simplest:
“Follow me.”
It is not a command enforced by threat or backed by fear of punishment. Jesus does not say, “Follow me or else,” nor does he manipulate people by hinting darkly at what will happen if they refuse. What he offers is an invitation that assumes freedom rather than coercion.
Those he calls are allowed to hesitate, to misunderstand, even to refuse. Some walk away saddened. Others drift in and out. Jesus does not chase them down with explanations or threats.
This matters.
Jesus does not govern consciences. He awakens them.
Authority, in his hands, is not about replacing human discernment but calling it into maturity. He does not form dependents; he forms people capable of truth, love, and moral responsibility.
5. The burden we were taught to carry
When I first began returning to the question of the Image of God, I had not expected it to unfold into a series of reflections, let alone four separate articles. What began as an act of meditation gradually revealed itself as something more unsettling. Again and again, Scripture’s repeated warnings against idolatry came into sharper focus—not as abstract prohibitions, but as a recognition of how disastrously wrong our images of God can become, and how heavy a burden they can place on human shoulders.
I began to see more clearly why so many Christians carry a weight that Jesus never intended them to bear. A distorted image of God does not merely confuse belief; it reshapes authority. When God is imagined primarily as a controlling presence, it becomes dangerously easy for controlling forms of religious authority to feel normal, even virtuous—and for their consequences to be quietly endured rather than questioned.
This is where language about submission has so often done harm.
Many Christians were taught—often earnestly—that spiritual maturity was measured by how completely they yielded, how thoroughly they distrusted themselves, how relentlessly they examined their motives. Submission became not the fruit of love, but the test of faithfulness.
Consider how this has often played out in practice. A Christian becomes uneasy—about a teaching, a leader’s behaviour, or a decision made “from the front.” Yet they are encouraged to silence that unease, to distrust their own discernment, and to interpret obedience as virtue. Doubt is framed as rebellion; questioning as spiritual immaturity. What looks like humility on the surface slowly becomes self-erasure beneath it. People learned how to comply, but not how to trust; how to endure, but not how to flourish as free human beings.
For some of us, especially those who already felt unworthy, the call to submission was strangely attractive. It offered a holy explanation for self-suppression, and a way to turn shame into apparent faithfulness.
The result was not freedom, but anxiety.
6. Jesus and the yoke that is light
Jesus does not deny the cost of discipleship. But he insists that his authority does not add weight—it removes it.
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32 NRSV)
“My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:30 NRSV)
Jesus does not say that submission sets people free.
He says truth does.
Not truth enforced, but truth received.
Not certainty imposed, but truth allowed to work slowly, honestly, humanly.
When authority demands submission before trust, it reverses the Gospel. Jesus’ authority works the other way around: trust grows not through pressure or fear, but because people discover that he does not exploit it.
This kind of authority requires an unusual depth of security. Only a leader who is not anxious about their status can afford to invite rather than coerce, to wait rather than control, to allow refusal without retaliation. Jesus displays this security again and again. It is freedom from the need to secure himself. It is rarely seen in human leadership—though history offers occasional glimpses of it—and when it appears, it is unmistakable. It carries weight without force, and commands attention without demanding compliance.
7. When authority forgets its source
The Church has always struggled here.
It is tempting—especially under pressure—to exchange Jesus’ form of authority for one that feels safer: clearer boundaries, stronger enforcement, less risk.
Over time, authority (wrongly understood) shifts from serving truth to preserving order.
When that happens, questioning the leader becomes threatening. Doubt is moralised. Loyalty is rewarded more than honesty. And the name of Jesus is still invoked—even as his way is quietly set aside—an insidious abuse of human authority.
This is not merely poor leadership. It is theological confusion. Authority has been detached from the image of God it is meant to reflect.
8. Authority that enlarges the human person
Jesus’ authority does something unmistakable: it makes people more alive.
They become more truthful, not more frightened.
More capable of love, not more dependent.
More themselves, not less.
This is the mark of authority that bears the image of God. It does not shrink the soul in the name of obedience. It calls the soul into freedom, responsibility, and relationship.
This kind of enlargement rarely happens quickly. For many, especially those whose lives have been shaped by long years of fear or suppression, freedom comes with a season of awkward growth. People may appear immature, exuberant, or unsettled as aspects of themselves long held down are finally allowed to surface. This can be difficult to live with — and yet it is often the necessary work of becoming human for the first time. Authority that bears the image of God has the patience to allow this process to unfold. What looks like regression may, in fact, be delayed growth finally being permitted.
9. The question that remains
If Jesus is the image of God, then authority cannot be measured by how much it is obeyed, but recognised by what it produces. The fruit reveals:
Does it create fear—or courage?
Dependence—or discernment?
Silence—or truthfulness?
Compliance—or love?
And perhaps the most unsettling question of all:
If Jesus’ authority sets people free, why are so many forms of Christian authority afraid of that freedom?
Jeremy Marks, 6th February 2026